A taste of what's to come...

[admin]

As some of you know, Danielle Hobeika and I have been working on a complete re-design of the Illinois Matmen website during the off-season. Well, we finally have something to show you.

At this point, only the home page is ready for primetime. We are hoping to have the rest switched over to the new design by the end of the week.

I want to thank Danielle for putting up with me during the design process. I hope everyone likes the new look. Let us know what you think by voting in the poll and replying to this thread.

-admin
Illinois Matmen Staff

[Conquistadors]

Very sharp looking. But it hits me as too dark.

Mosty, who in the world is "I," as in "Danielle Hobeika and I"? Is this mystery person known to everyone except me? Why the secret?

[admin]

Originally Posted by Conquistadors

Mosty, who in the world is "I," as in "Danielle Hobeika and I"? Is this mystery person known to everyone except me? Why the secret?

I think you are the only one in the dark on this. "I" will let you do some research.

[agdfan]

My very first thought was it was too dark as well, but after looking around, everything is very readable and easy to find. I like it. Very sharp. Admin??? Who is that??? LOL

[birdwatcher35]

Looks very clean and organized as well as user friendly from the home page. As usual admin, you are outdoing yourself to provide us with a tremendous site to be a part of!

[Hans]

Looks great! Thank you for providing us with this great site. I appreciate all of your hard work.

[Jaguar]

Danielle has barely taken up residence in Illinois, and she has already made a bid splash. Nice job!

[titan442]

When I first viewed the page, I thought it was the home page of Overtime MMA. It took me a little long to figure out that it was the IL Matmen page.

I really like the Rankings along the side. I'm assuming that during the season, you're going to list the #1 ranked wrestlers in each weight class every week. That will be cool.

The white text with the black background is a little too much for my eyes.

I hope you don't change the forum to the black background and white text. I think there would be too many eye strains.

I like how you kept the state champion pictures at the top right--I assume that it would be random like it is normally.

All things being considered--I like the website as it is now, but just adding some of the newer, cool features from the new website.

Very creative!

[DH.]

Originally Posted by titan442

When I first viewed the page, I thought it was the home page of Overtime MMA. It took me a little long to figure out that it was the IL Matmen page.

I hope you are joking about taking you a while to figure out that it was the IL Matmen site... there is a big Illinois Matmen logo at the top and cut-outs of wrestlers in headgear as opposed to MMA pictures!

In any case, the style is similar because that is the way I design things and people come to me since they like that particular style.

Thanks to everyone who is providing feedback.

For those of you saying that it's too dark or that you are having trouble reading the headers, can you email me screenshots of what you are seeing at dhobeika@gmail.com? I have no problems reading the text at all on either the gray or the blue bgs, but it could be one of several things if you are having issues. I know that in the past, the Tahoma font has been difficult to read on Macs when bolded. (Although I think I tried to avoid using bold in the headers). It could also be a difference in monitor color calibrations on your screens. So it might help to change the bg color a little. Right now it's a dark gray, but are you guys really seeing it as black?

Also, the top banner image and the State Champions image are both random image scripts, so every time you refresh the page you should see a different set of images.

Thanks,

Danielle

[MR TWISTER]

I like the "dark" as they say. It looks good to me. I would suggest filling the whole page up as it tends to fall to the left with more copy, etc. than on the right. But maybe that is becasue it is a test model.

Change is always good.