change the visual design of gittip

[chadwhitacre]

Scroll down for comps.

[timothyfcook]

I think the initial goal here should be creating 2 Gittip logos, large and button-sized.

[timothyfcook]

a step in the right direction

[chadwhitacre]

You don't like the heart-coin favicon? :-)

[timothyfcook]

nope.

[chadwhitacre]

Thanks for the effort. I think the design is good enough for the current phase of growth. My ideal would be to "hire" a professional designer to own the Gittip visual design for the next phase of growth (whatever "hiring" turns out to look like for an open corporation ;-) ).

I'm going to keep this ticket in the icebox for now.

[timothyfcook]

I fully agree.

[chadwhitacre]

For lack of more specifics, I interpret comments like this as +1's for this ticket.

[chadwhitacre]

A few notes on this as I believe Damon from Balanced is going to give this some attention:

• show data and comparisons
• need data above the fold on the homepage
• primary emphasis should be on receivers -- how are they making the world better? what's their story?
• secondary emphasis should be on givers
• work with funding goal (see also switch leaderboard receivers to percentage of funding goal #147, though don't feel constrained to take it literally)
• design should be responsive -- work on laptop at different resolutions and on mobile (phone and tablet)
• current font is Lato, but it is problematic on Linux (up the contrast #140) and in extended charsets (investigate Lato outside of ASCII #62)
• if you want to change the identity system let's tackle that first

[sbaney]

I like the current design.

The icon is nice, but you may want to tweak the heart a bit - it looks a little squished to me.

I might also suggest a different color scheme. The neutral colors are relaxing but you might want something a little brighter.

Maybe a browse option of some sort would be helpful? Perhaps associating users with their projects (or primary/most recent project?) more readily?

[dmdj03]

Would love everyone's feedback on the design for Gittip. Thanks!

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/k7gobwgqbttywo1/XngrL8lg6c [Scroll down! —ed.]

[chadwhitacre]

This is really exciting, @dmdj03, thank you! Will review more fully tomorrow.

[chadwhitacre]

One quick question: could you post a bigger pic of the logo for us, and maybe say a few words about it?

[dmdj03]

Sure. You can use this same link to access the logo:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/k7gobwgqbttywo1/XngrL8lg6c [Scroll down! —ed.]

With the logo, I wanted to create a separate bug that could be used independent of the wordmark - as a button perhaps. I modified the "G" to incorporate a bow/ribbon as a subtle reference to the idea of gifting / giving thanks.

[kennethreitz]

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[kennethreitz]

Inline images ftw :)

[chmullig]

I really like the bow/ribbon, because it looks a bit like an infinity sign, which implies the ongoing nature of donations. (Of course I'm in the middle of a math class right now, so me seeing infinity signs everywhere may be unusual).

[chadwhitacre]

@dmdj03 Ah, now I see the bow, not sure what that was. Very cool!

@kennethreitz Thank you!

@chmullig Good call!

[timothyfcook]

I like it. Although there was something nice and unique about the Green/Teal(?) color combination that Chad began with... I am partial to those colors, it's an attractive scheme that you don't see very often.

[rchlmrtn]

Really a step up! The colors are a little bland, but still surprising...

Two verbal critiques:

1. "Personal funding" is really vauge and not so inspiring. I would still like better something like "Put your money where your heart is," cheesy though it is.
2. The two lines which start, "set up up recurring gift tips...." are way too long. Perhaps something like, "Give a recurring tip to people who (break) MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE." That way it's implied that both the person who is tipped and the person doing the tipping are "making the world a better place."

[chadwhitacre]

Yeah I don't know. "Fund people"? "Fund people building the commons"? We lost the heart ...

[kennethreitz]

Sponsor People

[chadwhitacre]

Does "fund" have currency at the moment? Crowd fund ing? Is that a hook?

[chadwhitacre]

I bought gfftd.com and reserved @Gfftd on Twitter and GitHub. Do you think that name would work with @dmdj03's design?

[kennethreitz]

What's wrong with the current name that already has people's attention?

[kennethreitz]

gittip is pronounceable and easy to remember. gfftd is not.

[chmullig]

I can't even tell what letters are in gftftfd.

[chadwhitacre]

It would be pronounced "gifted."

[kennethreitz]

giftd

[dmdj03]

@whit537 are you looking for the AI file? or just a jpg of the design?

[heartpunk]

@whit537 I may feel inspired to rework some of the front end to match that design once rubygems stuff is done, but one thing at a time.

[chadwhitacre]

@dmdj03 I was looking for the AI files.

[dmdj03]

@whit537 I wasn't able to attach the AI here since it's not an image. Here's the link to the folder:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/y939embdpcg80vz/lfFX6M_owb

[chadwhitacre]

Thanks @dmdj03! :-)

[chadwhitacre]

Whatever we do here needs to be responsive.

[clone1018]

I agree, also on another note looking into mobile apps wouldn't hurt in the future.

[sigmavirus24]

@clone1018 as long as @whit537 only ever uses HTTPS, the mobile app (assuming it is well designed) will be the better way to go. Currently the API wouldn't allow for good mobile application development. (A RESTful API would make that way easier.)

[chadwhitacre]

Also, let's stick with the heart coin logo: .

[chadwhitacre]

Mobile apps: Sure, just had a non-geek friend on Facebook ask me when to expect the iPhone app.

[chadwhitacre]

@nicksergeant has expressed interest in picking this one up(!).

[nicksergeant]

Hopefully will be able to get started on the front-end by early next week. Looking forward to it :)

[chadwhitacre]

@nicksergeant Reticketed conversion to markup as #516. Let's discuss further there and elsewhere.

[chadwhitacre]

At our hangout on Tuesday, we talked about using GitHub milestones more effectively, and I think this is a great case for that. I've created the following milestone to track this instead of continuing to load up this ticket with everything:

https://github.com/zetaweb/www.gittip.com/issues?milestone=26&state=open

[chadwhitacre]

Fuck. Yeah.

[kennethreitz]

woah!

[chadwhitacre]

:-)