Permies homepage has a new look

We have a new home page! Olof revamped the look and I think it looks amazing!

We had a few people look at the page, but it is possible we missed some issues. Please report in this thread if there is anything that looks broken.

Spectacular! It looks awesome in mobile view as well!

What? Did Jonathan Ivy come by? Now it's skeumorphic...materialistic design?

Ok, this comment is going to be critical, coming from a viewpoint from on the other side of the fence. But I'm not being belligerent or arguing. Just stating my own view on this new development taking over the web.

The current trend with techie stuff seems to be heading for as flat as it can get, as cartoony & comic bookish without going to stick figures. It's an art form that goes as far as possible away from Mother Nature. Ok, this is just my opinion, but hey, I told ya I'm on the other side of the fence. Yes, I hate the new look of my iPhone and iPad. It may actually be advantageous for small phone screens because the scheme is quite minimalistic. And many websites are going to the look, I assume to attract the younger crowd. But want to know something? I've gradually stopped looking at those sites anymore. The skeumorphic design actually made me lose interest. But then, I'm a back-to-nature gal, not an urbanite. Guess I'm just an old fuddy-dutty.

The overall permies.com look is comfortable and woodsie now. I've grown to like it. Stepping backward to skeumorphic seems like leaving the country farm and moving to New York City.

As you gather by now, I'm giving the new look a thumbs down. It might be good for techie websites, but I question the approach when targeting an audience that wants to embrace all things natural.

Looks great! I absolutely love it.

Oooh, pretty!

Su Ba wrote: It's an art form that goes as far as possible away from Mother Nature.

You got me i secretly work for Monsanto and im trying to make permies as unnatural as possible Muwahaha,... only kidding

My rational for this design is to:
1 "make things better" - it now works on mobile better etc.. hurray
2 Infect more brains - trick the main streamers in to a false sense of security so they think.... - hey this Permies thing ain't so bad. Then when they least expect it...
Boom we mulch, seed bomb and sprinkle them with a tiny bit of organic purple hippy fairy dust glitter and a good dousing of brown logical permaculture compost tea and badabing! we got ourselves another one unplugged form the matrix and partying in the permaculture zion

I get your point though maybe i could have explored a more natural tactile style too... well maybe next time i guess we should observe and interact and see how this puppy flies ??

by the way... it appears that you also chose not to go the natural route for your website..., if you would like im available for hire,
and i got a great camera so i could redesign your blog completely using photographs of natural things like sticks rocks leafs etc.. it can look pretty cool

Let me know if you are interested. here is my portfolio. www.olofdesign.com you probably wont like most things on there, given its very commercial as far as possible away from Mother Nature etc...
but i do have one art project on there that is all about natural pictures..
when i get some time im going to create a new portfolio that is more inline with my current clients/values, i got a heap of new projects i have worked on whilst traveling around the world doing permaculture stuff that are more natural, aswell..
thanks for your feedback

Hi Olof! Hope I didn't hurt your feelings with my most frank opinion. I'm just not a fan of skeumorphic design. In fact, I resisted upgrading my iPhone for the longest time because I really disliked the new look. Same thing with my iPad. If I hadn't have dropped it and shattered the screen, I'd still be using that outdated thing. I'm just an old dog that hates new tricks, I suppose. But the again, I've never been a fan of Picasso nor the cubist art style. I'll take Andrew Wyeth any day.

As for my website, it's a free standard template offered by blogspot. I am totally not techie oriented. I've barely managed to make my simple blog website. It took me weeks to figure out how to add a widget for subscribing....or even learn what a widget was. I've never figured out how to add a banner, nor a new page. Thanks for your offer to change my website, but then I'd have to figure out how to run it, so no thank you. I'll just keep life simple and less stress by using what I already know. By the way, if blogspot had offered something more natural and soft, I would have opted for it.

I commend you on the techie ability. It surely isn't my forte. Now give me a lamb with a broken leg and I could fix that quite nicely. I can spay a dog, castrate a boar, cure a dog with mange, treat a cat's abscess, administer anesthesia, set an IV line, interpret an x-ray, amputate a leg, treat an ear infection, extract a molar. But if the problem is with my computer, I'm lost.

Su Ba wrote:What? Did Jonathan Ivy come by? Now it's skeumorphic...materialistic design?

Ok, this comment is going to be critical, coming from a viewpoint from on the other side of the fence. But I'm not being belligerent or arguing. Just stating my own view on this new development taking over the web.

The current trend with techie stuff seems to be heading for as flat as it can get, as cartoony & comic bookish without going to stick figures. It's an art form that goes as far as possible away from Mother Nature. Ok, this is just my opinion, but hey, I told ya I'm on the other side of the fence. Yes, I hate the new look of my iPhone and iPad. It may actually be advantageous for small phone screens because the scheme is quite minimalistic. And many websites are going to the look, I assume to attract the younger crowd. But want to know something? I've gradually stopped looking at those sites anymore. The skeumorphic design actually made me lose interest. But then, I'm a back-to-nature gal, not an urbanite. Guess I'm just an old fuddy-dutty.

The overall permies.com look is comfortable and woodsie now. I've grown to like it. Stepping backward to skeumorphic seems like leaving the country farm and moving to New York City.

As you gather by now, I'm giving the new look a thumbs down. It might be good for techie websites, but I question the approach when targeting an audience that wants to embrace all things natural.

I'm kind of confused by the term "skeumorphic." When I look it up (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeuomorph), the definition seems to be making interfaces look as "real" as possible--such as turning pages instead of clicking buttons, or having soundboard dials on a media program, or an electric kettle looking like a stovetop kettle. What you're describing sounds like something that is more unrealistic/stylized. Is there more to this definition than I'm getting?



As for this design style itself, stylized art has never seemed "unnatural" to me (though, I much prefer to draw realistically. And, like Su, I've never much cared aesthetically for cubism!). Humans have been creating stylized art from the very beginning. It's a very natural thing for us to do, and realism has taken up a pretty small portion of human history. Prehistoric art is very symbolic and stylized. It does a great job of communicating a message, such as "man with spear kills boar." We don't need to know what flowers were around him or how many fingers he had to get that message across, and adding those things would muddle the message. They do make it pretty, and add complexity, but sometimes we need a simple image to tell a simple story, like, "Here's where to find posts about trees." I think a navigational page is a great place to have such simplicity.

I, personally, really like what Olof has done here. It's so cheerful and easy to navigate. The simplicity guides my eye to the important details. The only thing I think could use a little more work would be the large Super P permie person at the top. Because the person is so large, the blockyness seems a little "too much" to me. Perhaps because the level of detail per pixel is higher everywhere except for the person, and so it seems a bit incongruous. Also, the top is more of an "Arty" area, where a little more detail can be added to add complexity to the message. That, and the tiny upper arms are kind of driving me crazy. But, those are all really inconsequential details, and I'm really grateful for Olof doing all this work for us. Thank you, Olof!

Looks good to me! I like it better than both the "Old view" which I'm currently using, and the New View" that I never liked and never started using.

On my poor internet connection, a lot of the videos show as black rectangles, and all the forums are brown circles, which I assume are supposed to be images.

I like it that there are several different types of things on the same page, clearly shown as distinct.

I think the new home page looks great! I especially love the colors and the clean lines of the easy to 'read' icons.
For the record, since it's come up a bit in the posts above, I love modern art, cubism and all....don't quite see the correlation to Olof's designs though.
Skeumorphic was a new word to me. I enjoyed reading about it's various meanings
Thanks for all your work Olof!

I love it.

Nothing else to really add.
I think it looks great.

Not having one techie blood cell in my veins, perhaps my use of skeumorphic is incorrect. I was led to believe that it, plus "materialistic design", were the correct terminology for the new flat, simplistic look of the iPhone/iPad interface and smartphones. Personally I preferred the design that had more depth to it. It was easier on my mind and brain. I suppose it's a bit what one is raised to. I never watched much in the way of cartoons, nor was exposed to anime.

Olof indeed did a nice job on the home screen. I guess it's just not what I like. My mind, trained during an older timeframe, has a more difficult time interpreting the icons when there is no depth. I find it's like looking at Boy Scout badges and trying to figure out what they are suppose to represent. I was never good at that either. But a big thanks to Olof...his design is far, far easy to figure out than those old Boy Scout badges.

Looks like I'm the odd man out on this issue, but....sigh....that's nothing new to me. I'm a country girl that was stuck being born and raised in a big city. So I've been the odd duck all my life.

No hard feelings, eh Olof? It's just like Baskins Robbins......not everybody likes vanilla ice cream.

It's beautiful work. My only complaint is that the huge header image takes up too much space.

Love it! there is a small bug on mobile there is a weird empty space underneath the header. I attached a screen shot.

I Love it! I think it's a lot more accessible and clean. However, I do have one suggestion, which I think is an important one. All of the cartoon people, except for Masanobu Fukuoaka, are white. I think it would be an improvement if the logo for the "Community" forum had a diverse crew of cartoon characters, preferably with a non-white female at the apex (there's already a white male at the top of the page standing on everything below, and all of the featured artisans are male, most of whom are white). Considering a big mission of Paul's is to infect more brains, permaculture is going to need to become considerably more diverse. I think the home page of Permies ought to reflect that goal.

I like the clean lines and simple color scheme of the new look. They are visually appealing and easy to decipher - uncluttered - which is especially nice with poor eye-sight or small screens. I also appreciate the organization of the many options down the page, making it very easy to navigate to the material of interest. I'd say it is a job well done. Thanks for the time and effort that went into this new design.

I like it!

So, is "daylyish" a deliberate mispelling, like moichendize?

SO glad you are asking for feedback! Thank you! The site looks amazing!

Just one little issue I've had all along: I read Permies on my non-touchscreen computer so I don't know if this is a problem.... but I desperately need page buttons at the *bottom* of each page. They exist only at the top which requires scrolling up... I can't tell you how many times I've quit reading a forum topic prematurely because my brain sees "no further-page buttons" and translates that as "end of topic, time to move on". All other forums I'm part of have numbers at top and bottom.

I don't like it either, the cartoons and all.

Fresh. I like it.

Julia Winter wrote:I like it!

So, is "daylyish" a deliberate mispelling, like moichendize?

Nope, we just missed it. I will ask Olof to fix this.

Joy Banks wrote:
Just one little issue I've had all along: I read Permies on my non-touchscreen computer so I don't know if this is a problem.... but I desperately need page buttons at the *bottom* of each page. They exist only at the top which requires scrolling up... I can't tell you how many times I've quit reading a forum topic prematurely because my brain sees "no further-page buttons" and translates that as "end of topic, time to move on". All other forums I'm part of have numbers at top and bottom.

You should see page number at the bottom too. Are you logged in when that happens?

You should see page number at the bottom too. Are you logged in when that happens?

Ah HAH! (smacks head) No I was not logged in! I just tried it now (logged in) and Wah-Lah they have appeared!
Thank you oh mighty Wish-Granter.

Julia Winter wrote:I like it!

So, is "daylyish" a deliberate mispelling, like moichendize?

fixed

I rather like the new look and setting out. Fresh and clean. However i am not keen on the headless figure; it raises connotations in my mind of faceless people, lack of accountability, and the modern trend towards dehumanization. I automatically think of damage when i see a figure without a head, whether it is alive or not. Maybe that is just my quirky mind.

Oops - in my post, I used the word "alive" when it should have been something like "a representation or cartoon".

Love it!

Su Ba wrote:Hi Olof! Hope I didn't hurt your feelings with my most frank opinion. I'm just not a fan of skeumorphic design. In fact, I resisted upgrading my iPhone for the longest time because I really disliked the new look. Same thing with my iPad. If I hadn't have dropped it and shattered the screen, I'd still be using that outdated thing. I'm just an old dog that hates new tricks, I suppose. But the again, I've never been a fan of Picasso nor the cubist art style. I'll take Andrew Wyeth any day.

As for my website, it's a free standard template offered by blogspot. I am totally not techie oriented. I've barely managed to make my simple blog website. It took me weeks to figure out how to add a widget for subscribing....or even learn what a widget was. I've never figured out how to add a banner, nor a new page. Thanks for your offer to change my website, but then I'd have to figure out how to run it, so no thank you. I'll just keep life simple and less stress by using what I already know. By the way, if blogspot had offered something more natural and soft, I would have opted for it.

I commend you on the techie ability. It surely isn't my forte. Now give me a lamb with a broken leg and I could fix that quite nicely. I can spay a dog, castrate a boar, cure a dog with mange, treat a cat's abscess, administer anesthesia, set an IV line, interpret an x-ray, amputate a leg, treat an ear infection, extract a molar. But if the problem is with my computer, I'm lost.

Hey Su no worries, im a professional and i appriciate your feedback, you sure have a arsenal of useful skills.... would love to know a bit more about how you cure a dog with mange.
last the PC farm we where in( panya project) we met a dog that just could not stop itching and scratching... they had tried all sorts of things to help her out but nothing worked.. she also had a really bad smell.. if you got some good tips i would be happy to hear them and pass them on to the guys at panya.

I like it a lot. It's clean and clear. The layout is both logical and intuitive. The colour scheme isn't rowdy and in-your-face. The navigation is instantly obvious and the page is inviting. And it isn't falling prey to this latest 'mobile first' single page sectional layout which I find off-putting and a right pain to use on a laptop - so much wasted space and far too much unnecessary scrolling.

I'd really like to see this design theme on the forums too! Is that a possibility? I can see why people would like the down-homey vibe of the wooden siding, but exchanging information, particularly written information, is the primary purpose of the forum, therefore the written information needs to be the focus of attention, not the decoration surrounding it. For me, the wood is far too distracting and visually 'loud'. This and the 3D-effect edges to the posts make reading much more tiring and it's harder to concentrate on the text. If the decoration gets in the way of the content, then for me it's a design fail. If there's no plans to change it, I'll be staying with the old view.

Wendy Howard wrote:I'd really like to see this design theme on the forums too! Is that a possibility?

You mean something like this??

Brilliant!! Waaaaay better! Like that a lot. When are you rolling it out?

Ooh! I like that as well. I don't feel strongly about the wood, but I do like the way that looks, at least in little screen shots.

Liz Green wrote:...i am not keen on the headless figure; it raises connotations in my mind of faceless people, lack of accountability, and the modern trend towards dehumanization. I automatically think of damage when i see a figure without a head, whether it is alive or not. Maybe that is just my quirky mind.

I'm guessing the figure is headless so it can represent a Super-Permaculture-Power person of any sex, age, race, etc...?

Big improvement in terms of intuitiveness/clarity. Well done, would love to see the forums look as above also

Off topic but mentioned above, I am wondering why you have to log in to see the 'next page' tabs at the bottom. If you want people to join shouldn't the site be easy for everybody to use when they first visit?

Very cool. I think it's a nice improvement.

Looked around and it looks great!!
Immediately found something to buy....yahoo!

Hey Paul!  
When are we going to roll out the new design on the forum pages??

Olof Jönnerstig wrote:Hey Paul!  
When are we going to roll out the new design on the forum pages??

Maybe the first step would be to create a thread in the tinkering forum to talk about the user page view.  That page certainly needs an overhaul.   It can have elements of a new look and elements of current home page view.  

And then we might create threads about how to improve some of the other pages (one thread per view).  The pages that come to mind are:

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