VisorCentral.com - CollectiveArts in need of Contributors/Columnists

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Posted by Celchu19 on 03-27-2002 04:43 AM:

CollectiveArts in need of Contributors/Columnists

As you might already know I have a website called CollectiveArts, located at http://www.collectivearts.net/. We strive to bring the best independent content on the web together in one super site. We have a fully developed web site that provides rich arena for all of its content.

We are currently in the process of redirecting the focus and form that CollectiveArts uses.

Right now we are seeking people willing to writ weekly and bi-weekly columns on anyone of a number of subjects, in addition to another ,ore specialized task; but first, the columns.

If you would like to write a column you must have sufficient experience or knowledge with your subject matter to write a five to seven hundred or more word column once every week or two depending on what you specify. Possible topics includes, but aren't limited to the following (feel free to suggest subjects and topics in other fields that you are interested in):

Technology - mobile technology, implications of, in reality, reviews, market analysis
Cyber Culture - reviews, theories, studies, summaries, commentary
Visual Art - photography, graphics, painting, and drawing how-to's, and reviews
Writing - the business, the craft, how to's, and philosophy
Performance Art - movie and theatre, business, reviews, commentary
Cooking - recipes, equipment, restaurant reviews
Clothing � Fashion, styles, production of,
Textile Arts � Weaving, Knitting, and sewing how-to's information, gear, suggestions, patterns

We are also interested in finding people to write for our "Tech Musings" weblog. This log, features news, reviews, commentary and other musings from its group of contributors. You can write a column and contribute to tech musings, if you like.

If you are interested, in anything that I've presented here, please contact me by email ([email protected]) or reply to this thread. Thanks, and I hope to hear from you all soon!

Cheers,
Sam

__________________
Sam Kleinman

PocketPCThoughts.com
CollectiveArts
Free-ePress
Musings of a Teal Artist
CollectiveArts TechMusings

"Everybody don't like something and we all don't like you." -- Richard Thompson, Hard Luck Stories

Posted by yardie on 03-27-2002 06:50 PM:

Great Idea

CelChu19,

The idea behind your site is good but it does not seem very appealing. Its missing the oomph that would get people to want to visit and write articles for it. And why didn't you come up with a creative .com name instead of a .net?

Posted by Celchu19 on 03-27-2002 07:07 PM:

Re: Great Idea

quote:
Originally posted by yardie
Celchu19,

The idea behind your site is good but it does not seem very appealing. Its missing the oomph that would get people to want to visit and write articles for it. And why didn't you come up with a creative .com name instead of a .net?

I'm trying to give it as much oomph and I can find, and I"m willing to take suggestions for more oomph. Got any?

I used .net becuase it isn't really an organization, and it isn't comercial in any sort of way, and .net is ambigious enough to suit my purposes fine...

Cheers,
Sam

Posted by Madkins007 on 03-28-2002 03:54 PM:

Great idea, but the sites does lack a certain something. It feels heavy and static, vaguely uncomfortable.

The colors used are cool, dark, and heavy- that is probably a big part of it, and the use of frames and boxes makes it feel sort of stationary- almost leaden wth the color choices.

The alignment on the far left side with almost no border feels odd- I kept wanting to shift the view a bit to the right- I sort of felt I was smashed up against a wall to read it. Also, the main boxes to the left and sidebars to the right is backwards from the common ways of doing it. Thinking outside the box is OK, but the sublte confusion it can generate may be sending the worng message.

I know that edginess is a highly desired feel in many cutting edge sites, especially that deal with cyber-culture and so on, but I would think that you want more energy and excitement going on.

I have a decent eye, but I am not a webmaster. I would suggest (please keeping in mind that my opinions are worth exactly nothing!)...

1. Change the color scheme. I don't know what effect you are really trying for, but for an arts group, I would expect a lot of color.

2. Remove some text (relegate it to a second page or lower on the page) in favor of more 'white space' (if you'll forgive the expression) and artwork.

3. With a different color choice this may not matter, but increase the font size on things you want people to see, like the links.

4. Change the page layout to a format the typical user will feel at home and comfortable with- sidebars to the left, etc.

5. Your page links are sort of vague. Where will 'CF-Writing' take me? Do I want to go there? There could be some really great stuff on the links, but I did not see any reason to follow them out.

On the other hand...

The site loads quickly- which is refreshing in these days of flash and bandwidth intensive sites.

Almost no ads, clean layout, good writing- the actual content seems pretty good!

__________________
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are at!

Posted by Thunderbird291 on 03-28-2002 08:35 PM:

Oops, nevermind.

Posted by Celchu19 on 03-29-2002 12:53 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by Madkins007
Great idea, but the sites does lack a certain something. It feels heavy and static, vaguely uncomfortable.

The colors used are cool, dark, and heavy- that is probably a big part of it, and the use of frames and boxes makes it feel sort of stationary- almost leaden wth the color choices.

It is rather static, it's hard to generate content for independent websites unless you are willing to write it all yourself for a while, which would be good, execpt I have other things which demand my attention, and if I were doing all the writing it wouldn't be much of a collective website. I'm going to look into your suggestion about the colors, Fortunatly that is something we can change relativly easily thanks to the CSS. BTW, the website is as standards compliant as my sanity will allow. This means no tables, no frames, and all CSS, DIV and XHTML.

For a photographer I'm rather color blind and while I can see color, picking matching colors is something I've always had a problem with. Color wheels help a little, but not enough, and just to be on the safe side I pick one color that looks cool and I mess with the tone to get a suiteable palet. This design is one of the best I've done to date, and that says something. We had the Black and Dark Grey, we had the light grey, we had the teal, and so forth. I'll monkey with stuff and see what I can get. Thanks for the suggestion!

quote:
Originally posted by Madkins007
The alignment on the far left side with almost no border feels odd- I kept wanting to shift the view a bit to the right- I sort of felt I was smashed up against a wall to read it. Also, the main boxes to the left and sidebars to the right is backwards from the common ways of doing it. Thinking outside the box is OK, but the sublte confusion it can generate may be sending the worng message.

I know that edginess is a highly desired feel in many cutting edge sites, especially that deal with cyber-culture and so on, but I would think that you want more energy and excitement going on.

I'm also left handed and I do the mouse with my right hand, and for some reason this just feels natural. Also from a webdesigners perspective it's easier to get the menu DIV to push right. I tried breifly to have the DIV on the other side of the page but that resuluts in a lot of weird looking things with the menu div being so big, and gives the impression of less room, and the website is designed for people who browse with a width of 800 pixels. Every thing is hard coded pixel wise becaues I've yet to figure out how to do two columns with proportional widths to work nicely side by side. And lastly I kinda like the idea of having everyone read the site and having the same number of words per line. Call me wierd.

quote:
Originally posted by Madkins007
I have a decent eye, but I am not a webmaster. I would suggest (please keeping in mind that my opinions are worth exactly nothing!)...

I would suggest something quite oppisite in fact. You are a user, and someone who knows how to express what you think well in words (wanna write a column?

), and you likley reperesent a fair segment of web users. Your input will help us make the site better for everyone. Thank you, and we will try to act on as many of your suggestions as is practicle.

quote:
Originally posted by Madkins007
<snip>

On the other hand

The site loads quickly- which is refreshing in these days of flash and bandwidth intensive sites.

Almost no ads, clean layout, good writing- the actual content seems pretty good!

Your suggestion are helpfull, someone of them aren't really practicle, but we will try and do what we can.

One of the advantages to having a mostly text bassed site is that It doesn't take much time to load, and hopefully this will help attract visitors. There aren't any ads on the site, with the execption of button exchanges and that blogsnob thing (text bassed ad for weblogers), neither of whcih I'd consider intrusive or particularly bad. I also don't get any money for any of them, which is a factor for me...

Cheers,
Sam

Posted by Madkins007 on 03-29-2002 02:59 PM:

Thank you for your open response! It is fun acting as a sort of beta tester for things like websites.

When I saw your intial posting about doing a column, it struck a chord... but I haven't a clue as to what it could be about.

__________________
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are at!

Posted by Celchu19 on 03-29-2002 03:57 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Madkins007
Thank you for your open response! It is fun acting as a sort of beta tester for things like websites.

Your, Welcome! It's even better to hear from people, because without honest and through suggestions/notes from a visitor, we really have no clue what we are doing wrong and what we are doing right. Thanks again.

quote:
Originally posted by Madkins007
When I saw your intial posting about doing a column, it struck a chord... but I haven't a clue as to what it could be about.

Anything that you have a passion for, care about, are intrested in, or feel skilled to write. Sometimes you don't have to know a whole lot about a subject area to be able to write a column on it; that's why we do research. My first serious writing gig was a column about writing. I was almost compleatly clueless, and I just did a lot of reading, practiced my writing, and was able to have a product that while it isn't perfect in many ways, is something I'm fairly proud to say that I've done. I've constructed a number of lists of possible topics and subject areas (I'm going to include another one in a moment), but I should preface it by saying that you can suggest another topic that may or may not be related to something I have below.

Visual Art - Painting, Photography, Drawing, mixed medium, sculpting (how to, history, philosophy of, reviews, commentary)
Writing - How to, reviews, books, "best of the web"
Performing Art - Plays, Script writing, directing, producing, reviews, movies,
Collecting/Collectibles - Stamps, pens, coins, old toys, baseball cards etc.
Internet/Cyber culture - IRC, IM, Sites, web design, building communities, managing communities, experience in, web site reviews,
Athletics/Sports - Any sport (news, summaries, commentary)
Cooking/Eating - Directions, how to, tips, reviews, restraunts
Science/Research - Any field, some sort of specialty required.
Design/Fashion - Trends, how to, tips, etc.
Technology/Development - Mobile Tech, Programming, operations, etc.

If you pick a broad enough topic you won't have any trouble writing a good column every week or every other week. I'm fairly good for comming up with ideas of possible subjects, and there are some topics that will work better as weekly or bi weekly columns, and warn you about that if you are intrested.

Thanks for your intrest, Cheers,

Sam

Posted by yardie on 03-30-2002 08:46 AM:

Questions

Celchu19:

I think Madkins was detailed abou the oomph thing I was talking about. I am sorry that I was not more sepecific. I have a couple of questions:

1. Who is the target audience of the site?

2. What is the site really about?

3. How will this site be different from comparative sites?

4. What is the ultimate goal and purpose of the site?

5. Will the site be for profit or non-profit?

6. What are the motivations behind the creation of this site?

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