We’re developing a website for one of the largest cooking sites on the internet, and we want your help! We’re looking for several mockups, intensely professional, minimalist, simple
We are re-designing this website from the ground-up. Some of it’s competitors include myrecipes.com, allrecipes.com, epicurious.com, http://www.recipezaar.com/. These are the competitors that we need to crush
Layout should be liquid, elastic…we’re looking at users with 800×600 and 2300×1900, so flexibility is important. Each PSD mockup should have a home page ‘look’, ‘article page’, recipe page, a ’secondary content’ page, search/results page, open to others if you have thoughts. Please review the website for an idea of the content involved and the site map, etc. When desigining, please keep the current AdSense ads in mind with the design…also note, we have no use for banner ads in the design. We have very well-paying clients, so for the right designer, we can be an extremely profitable client. We do not need help in programming/coding, just the design of the site. To re-emphasize, this site will most likely be one of your most visible portfolio pieces, as this site gets tens of millions of pageviews every year.

Below is a screenshot of their current homepage:

1. Logo HAS to go - Although contest specifically stated not to touch it
2. Area has no organization or order, thumbnails are different sizes, article lengths vary from long to short - categorization is absent
3. Seems that this area is just filled with links to other sister wesites, or articles that belong to other websites. Again, shows lack of planning and organization
4. Probably the only section that has some form of class - Summer Drinks. Altough aesthetically - thumbnails are different sizes, table columns span the size of the thumbnail above making them un-uniformed, plus - text are center aligned *I don’t like center aligned text

In addition, the pages are clearly done in with no server technology whatsoever. It has good content - but sure can use a blogging platform such as wordpress. This alone can take care of categorization, visual order, not to mention - search engine optimization… but I digress. I’m here to redesign, that’s what I need to do.
The screenshot below is my first mock up of what the site can look like:

What I’ve done:

1. The Logo - I did not touch, but did make it very small to NOT to cramp the style
2. Added a giant container for a “feature” recipe or article. The attention grabber, the headliner - can be done with a slideshow or a codaslider effect of some sort. This is the jist of the website, the “thesis” statement … you get my point
3. Formatted all articles to have the same look - the same number of lines, characters, the same continue reading buttons etc. Thumbnail sizes are also identical (like I’ve mentioned - can be done automatically depending on the wordpress theme). Played with Font sizes and colors - titles of course, are larger than the content, category titles are even bigger with added style
4. Added an extended footer - which contains an ever so important “about the author”, also squeezed in the external links to other websites

And that’s it. Hoping the folks running the contest see things the way I see them and hopefully win. I haven’t won a single contest yet - but still trying.

Design details:

We are creating a new website for our company.  The goal is to get perspective clients to view the website and then click through to a demo sign up form and submit it.  The old website is www.bonafide.com  It is a bit too cluttered on top and does not have much color.  We would like to use the bonafide logo on the main page as well as maroon and grey as the primary coloring.  We would like to give a breif description of the product and then have a side bar of links to information pages about different features.  (Billing, enteral supplies, High-End Rehab, etc)  Probably will have 5 categories with 5 sub categories which each link to their own informational page with probably a picture and 2 paragraphs of text

To elaborate on what problems they have on their existing website:

Bonafide.com Current Website

1. This is the most important content where it talks about the software they are trying to sell
2. Contains very important information that builds client trust - should be brought out more
3. Information regarding industry - should be updated frequently or make it so that it’s in a “Latest News” container
4. “Demo” Link is a bit out of place and too small

Additionally, most of the content talks about the company history - which should be placed in the “about the company” page. Furthermore, the aesthetics is a very bland, navigation is crude and graphics are outdated.

My Design: I picked up the color schema from their original logo. Added buttons, icons and many typographic styles to enhance presentation. Fixed the navigation issue by placing it in a fixed spot before the footer section for faster lookup and reference. But the big task for me was to re-organize their content. I added several ”compartments” (I find this approach similar to bullets in presentations - it is much more appealing to the eye and easier to read):

1. Compartments that highlight company message and achievements
2. an “In the News” section that provide industry related events
3. a section for “Customer Testimonials” and a “Clients” box - an almost guaranteed way of building new customer trust
4. Most importantly, the software they’re trying to sell is in the largest container with an enhanced “Demo” link as the main attraction of the page

Bonafide.com Proposal

Conclusion: I may have thrown in more than what they have asked for - but from my experience of being a webmaster, I can’t help but include some marketing techniques I’ve picked up along the way. I believe a strong web designer doesn’t just follow what looks good - or what is the latest design trend, but an understanding of what works - combined with a good taste for art. This is what defines talent.

Hopefully the folks in Bonafide.com see what I see. I’ll keep you guys updated on the outcome.

*Keep in mind that a web application requires a separate “Web Site” in IIS. With this said - you can set up several web applications in one web server - each application will have it’s own respective port. The steps to do this is similar to setting up multiple databases within one site collection

1. Setup a content database -
   • From the Central Administration Website, go to the Application Management Tab
   • 
   • Click on “Add a content database“

    

   • 
   • Verify that you’re in the right web application, enter the necessary information (database server, db name, authentication, search server etc. then click “OK“
   • 
   • After this process - double check your database server that the job was successful




2. Create a site collection-
   
   •  
     • From the Central Administration Website - Go back to the Application Management Page, and select “Create Site Collection“
     • 
     • Verify that you’re in the right web application, enter the necessary information
     • 
3. View Site Collections within your application

• To see your web farm with their corresponding databases - go back to Application Management, Under Sharepoint Site Management > click “Site Collection List”
  • 
  • On the left hand side you will see you site collections, after clicking on each - notice the corresponding databases in the right hand side (Database Name)
  • 
  • And that’s it. You have successfully set up a Web farm using the WSS 3.0 central administration web interface

But what I got was a complete different thing. Instead, PE is nothing like Photoshop desktop version. It is a futile attempt by Adobe to enter online photo album sharing and collaboration in which established Flickr, Picnik, Picasa and more already dominate.

This article will focus on image editing aspect of PE – what Photoshop IS all about:

User Interface is self-explanatory and simple. Once your account is set up, uploading images and/or migrating from other websites is a jiff.

Once an image is uploaded – under Photo Options > Edit Photo. We enter – image editing mode.

The toolbar sits on the left hand side covers three main categories: Basics, Tuning and Effects. That comprises about 5 percent of the workspace in the desktop version:

What I liked:

1. with every feature, hover your mouse in the preview thumbnails and you see in an instant how it looks
2. seven quick preset values to pick from
3. occasional “advanced control” button or a slider more control on adjustments
4. Undo, Redo, Reset All and View Original buttons are always available
5. Zoom in and out buttons sit at the bottom for easy access
6. check boxes – for each feature you have used where you can check or uncheck each time to undo or redo what you did

BASICS: includes crop, auto correct, exposure, red-eye removal, touch-up and saturation

• Crop & Rotate – dragging abilities with a click, handle bars for rotating, undo and reset options – pretty impressive

• Touch up - I assumed that “Touch up” would be like to “airbrush” (got me excited). Instead, it turned out to be a dirty version of the clone tool and the healing brush combined. The difference is it is tough to manipulate. And even if was easy to manipulate – they made a major mistake in combining both functions in one tool. See, the healing brush takes averages of one spot to another in order to “heal” an image – mainly used on edges etc. The clone stamp on the other hand – is taking the exact spot and “cloning” it to another. The image below shows my boy’s eye – cloned into another area in black & white – the same as the surrounding background. Honestly, how will you utilize this?

• Saturation – quite useful. Converts your image from dull to vibrant or vice versa. Despite the preset values, an optional slider is available for more detailed saturation preference

TUNING: includes White Balance, Highlight, Fill Light, Sharpen and Soft Focus

• White balance: very useful. Kudos to Adobe for going a step further to include correction presets including: 1) Full auto 2) Correct for Sunlit, Cloudy and Shady conditions 3) Correct for Incandescent, Fluorescent and Flash lighting. In addition, “Advanced Control” for even more custom adjustments

• “Highlight” is to change the brightness of the brightest part of your photo while “Fill Light” is like adding flash. Both tuning features I am not going to talk about, but I see would be of use – depending on your image
• Sharpen and Soft focus – effects such as Orton method

EFFECTS: includes Pop Color, Hue, Black & White, Tint, Sketch and Distort

• Pop color – “a way to make one color really stand out”. Reminds me of the “Posterize” filter. Very limited and condensed, with no ability to fade the effect. Again, an effect reminiscent of the neon ‘80s era. Depending on your style – To me – its quite useless

• Sketch – at first I thought would have drawing abilities. i.e. Airbrush and , instead it is similar to sketch effect in the desktop version -“make your photo look hand-drawn”. A little too much effect in my opinion.

• Distort – This should have been left off the palette. If you have to really alter your images – then this might be useful. As for my boy’s photo – no use at all. He’s handsome as it is

• Other effects such as Hue, Black &White and Tint pretty much serve the same purpose with preference on which color to highlight and which to discard

ADDITIONALS:

• Previewing your final image is pretty straightforward – simply click the big check mark and decide to “reset all” and “cancel” or “save as”– (which automatically concatenates “_edited” at the end of the original image name) – saves to the library only
• If you decide to download a copy, email, link, embed the photo you just edited – this can all be done from the library view
• Other settings such as sharing, linking to facebook, flickr, photobucket and picasa is also available

Conclusion – As mentioned before, PE is an “OK” web application; though it is far from even considered a “good” one.

I would like to see:

And extended tool palette that includes:

• Drawing and painting with brushes – since PE backbone is built in Flash this doesn’t seem so unattainable. I have seen many Flash websites with the ability to draw and paint online
• Selection and extraction tools such as the Magic wand, and the Marquees
• Eraser Tools

Additional functions standard in Photoshop desktop such as:

• Layers - Very important! A fundamental must-have for image manipulation
• Shapes - custom and standard
• Color pickers
• Ability to add Text layers and Font collections (This feature is already available in Picnik)
• Frames and borders (also available in Picnik)

An “auto-save” feature – for instance you’ve been working on an image and your internet connection blew up. I would like a feature that auto-saves a “draft” copy of my image to go back to just in case

Consider that PE is its infantile stages, I wouldn’t be surprised if Adobe gradually shifts towards adding a lot more features. I mean c’mon – we’re talking about Adobe Systems here. For the mean time, I don’t see photographers, graphic designers or even photo enthusiasts replacing it with the desktop version.

- “Contests” are held by people who are looking for designs 

- Designers can browse through ”contests” and submit their designs

- More features and updates can be found at their blog

To download: simpleskin