Ha!

Solar Thorn

Well here's the thing, my sister's boyfriend is the lead guitarist in a Death Metal band and as things tend to go in families, word eventually found its way to his ears that I was web developer.

He asked that I create the website for his band. I happily accepted, even though I'm not sure if I'll get paid. I accepted because I was to be in charge of the design, the images, the layout and basically everything meaning that it is a work that I can have fun with and hopefully place in my portfolio.

It wasn't until after I accepted to build the site that I remembered that I can't stand Death Metal, have no idea what your average Death Metal fan sees as appealing in the music (I can sometimes find a decent guitar riff or melody mixed in amongst the screaming) and thus didn't really know where to start.

I have done an extensive amount of research and have put together this site based on my findings but what I want to know is (if there are any metal fans on the Squeeze) if I have captured what one would expect to see on a Metal Band's site.

Somethings to note as you critique my site:

• The code is value XHTML strict but it isn't. It isn't because I have placed a flash music player on the site.
• I would like to hear your critique on the feel and overall layout of the site, the flow and pages I am still putting together.

Some interesting things I have done/found on this site that I normally would stay clear of:

• Liberally used PNG's with alpha transparency as backround images, my research into the core audience for such a site showed that a vast majority will have IE7 or other alpha-transparency compatible browser.
• Coded the site optimised for 1024 * 720 and higher screen resolutions based on the above findings.
• Fallen even further in love with my graphics tablet as I created the images to be used on the site
• Using CAKEPHP, built a backend CMS for the site in PHP/MySQL so the band can easily add/remove pages and other stuff on the site. This is the first time I have used cake for a personal project, it certainly helps to cut down on the menial tasks in PHP.

So in a nutshell, let me know what you think of the design and whether it says "Death Metal" to you... I understand that the source material is not everyone's cup of tea so feel free to say how you feel but consider the target audience...

Thanks for having a look.

Rakuli

Hi!

Lucky for you there's at least a couple \m/ heads here! The logo is along the right lines, but the site isn't working. Here's a few sites to checkout... (*may be explicit)

http://www.dimmu-borgir.com/
http://www.myspace.com/exodus
http://www.archenemy.net/
http://www.cannibalcorpse.net/
http://www.despisedicon.com/

I think overall you just need more death, destruction and carnage.

Hope this helps!

Rich

BTW... the band is pretty good! Live recordings too.

Looks pretty good to me! Your header and footer are great.

Maybe the nav is a bit too soft and flowery. Are the nav spots supposed to be petals? Roses are fine as long as they have prominent sharp thorns (as in the header), or are visibly being used to murder someone.

Or maybe they're supposed to be drops of blood. That would be wicked sick, but if so it's not apparent just yet.

Your filler content cracks me up.

This post has been edited by MikeHopley: May 30 2008, 01:55 PM

*Linda throws her neck out head banging to the music*

Ouch...

Did you design the band name?
Things I love:
The band name,
The footer area with the wispy graphics. So awesome!
The color scheme
The boxes on the right margin for news. I just might try making them a deeper gray.. again more deadly. Even the blood red.

Things that need more death:
The navigation. Somehow little ovals aren't deadly enough. I would explore thorns or something that hurts.
Also the header area behind the navigation seems empty. Maybe a few wispy things like the footer?

*huh, what did the singer say?*

Some of the sites Rich listed show how busy the graphics tend to be. So I might consider amping up the busy factor a bit more.
The gray content box might benefit from some type of death texture.

I think you have a very solid start. It's easy to move around, the color scheme is on target..

I like the overall design, but the navigation.. *brr* I really don't like that.. I'd make it more in the style of the logo you did at the bottom. Spiky, sharp and brutal..

so, in the picture.. who's the brother in law?

As others before I have to say I like the logo. I also like the twirly footer effect. But maybe there could be some dark red colour in there, like blood mixing with something.

As for the navigation. I don't like the blurry ovals and I don't like the font either. Try using some blackletter font.

The whole page could be a bit darker. Maybe stick with white writing on a pure black background.

** Closes gaping mouth after discovering how many squeeze members are metal fans **

Thanks for your input guys, I am starting to get a picture here that death and destruction seems to travel hand in hand with Death Metal -- go figure?!



Thanks Rich, it's good to see what other Death Metal band sites look like but I really don't like any of those. They are really hard to find your way around and apart from pictures of death and vulgarity, the site images have nothing to do with the band. Having said that, the images are quite striking and artistic for the Arch Enemy site. It does point out though that my present design is slightly too 'soft' and I will look at reworking, among other things, the top set navigation.



Surprisingly enough, the band themselves actually like the current navigation but I have some ideas on how I can make it more homicidal and blood is part of that. Ha! I did think of a rose as a murder weapon but decided that the stem would eventually become too floppy to do anything more than make sickly squelching noises on impact The filler content was to lighten my own mood a little as I was building




As above, the ovals are to be addressed. I agree, the header to the right of the logo is a black void at the moment, I will look at filling that while fixing the navigation. I also like your other point regarding the boxouts in the right margin. On closer inspection they appear almost like cartoon speech bubbles, certainly not fitting for a death metal band



I won't be using a white writing on a black backround, Death Metal or not, I won't force white on black on the user when the site will contain a reasonable amount of text.


Thanks for the pointers, I will have a look at the points addressed and hopefully come back with something dark and haunting

I agree that white on black is not a good idea in almost all cases and using it goes against all your principles of good design practice. However in this case you should consider what the audience would like to see. Almost all death metal website have this kind of colour scheme and the audience is quite used to it. Maybe talk it through with the band members (pros and cons) and see what they think.

I like the dark and haunting affect, but am i the only one slightly disturbed by the header on this site...

http://www.dimmu-borgir.com/

http://www.dimmu-borgir.com/images/main-im...ain-image01.jpg

White on black is actually almost as readable as black on white. I wouldn't worry about it.

White on black has its place in areas of web design but I disagree that it is the better or even equal choice for anything longer than a paragraph or two

I will continue with the black text for now but if I find that I am not sparking enough satanic thoughts and demonic emotions I will consider it I prefer effective use of whitespace but this is not a genre that allows such airy delights.

Will post back soon with an update based on above pointers. Cheers.

I agree, but that's a personal preference.

There is some evidence that light-on-dark colour schemes are less readable than dark-on-light (dark-on-light produces an effect called halation). But not by much. What really matters is the contrast, and avoiding common colour-blindness combinations (so no red-on-green text...as if you would).

Some people find light-on-dark more readable, because it emits much less glare. Perhaps the most readable colour scheme of all is the old wordprocessor yellow-on-dark-blue.

I have made a few updates to the site based on the feedback above and also feedback from the band. After showing them the site in its previous form and also the links from above, they decided they didn't want it to be as busy or deathly in its root design.

The images that they will upload through the CMS will fill those voids.

So... Have I managed to improve from the previous version? (below is the older version) http://www.solarthorn.net has the latest changes

What's with the bouncing sidebar?

*bounce bounce bounce*

Other than that, it's looking good.

This post has been edited by MikeHopley: Jun 3 2008, 08:44 AM

Hey Luke!
Love the changes. I think that is just enough red to add interest and the navigation background is nice. I really like that swirly/wispy effect. Great job with the pen tool!

I am so jealous about the sidebar. I love that. As I scrolled down it moved and I found that interesting.

One thing I noticed on the sidebar is that when the "preaching venom" graphic is showing, the bottom of the sidebar (wispy red) goes into the footer graphic a little showing a line.
Maybe a bit more minimum height can be added to avoid that?

Very nice! The red on the sidebar is great. It's just enough to keep the eye focus and interested.

Great improvement. The navigation looks a lot more like death metal now. And i like the sidebar.

The only thing is that the bottom of the sidebar vanishes under the footer image when it is extended. Maybe this could quickly be solved using z-index.

I like it!
Did you notice the bullets in your menu still show?