Social networking - designs

Taking in what I've researched, for the design stage I tried to implement what I have learnt.

I thought the majority of the social networking sites missed an opportunity in trying to reincarnate the visual designs of the actual consoles. Admittedly this might be to do with copyright and IP, but making something in the vein of that will familiarise the user, and maintain a strong visual standard.

Following a useful tutorial that I found a few weeks ago, I started trying a Wii look.

I particularly like the glow effect of the neon light blue to show which page you are on. Soft grey gradients are very popular nowadays, making for a quite a spacious feel. Plus, a design trend for 2009 is large type so I thought that the buttons although simplistic, work. Couple that with big easy to hit buttons, and it mimics the Wii well.

The next attempt was somewhat Xbox360 like, with nice web2.0 glossy buttons. However, compared to the other designs, this one felt limited. I couldn't picture a full layout, perhaps due to a lack of familiarity with the console. Furthermore, the green that I was trying to couple it with just didn't work in one package. 

It was the Playstation 3/Vista look that I really felt had potential. Knowing that the Wii design was too much of a rip off, I wished to incorporate the neon light blue which is a great colour for highlights/distinction etc. 

Again, the use of big buttons, perhaps amateurish to some, but I like it when you hover over and it changes quite a large slab of button to the hover display. The gradients here aren't horizontal which is what most do, instead using a combination of diagonal effects adds subtle highlights. 

This design could be described as quite dark and broody, which is somewhat associated with the image of more traditional gamers, but I find that the glass buttons and blue outlinedicons referencing gaming icons - space invader alien, Playstation control add a little more light hearted character.

Whilst experimenting in Photoshop I produced a really distinct off-shoot design. Using a LCD like dot font in the similar shade colour as the background, but then adding a gradient makes for an interesting look. I really wanted to try to develop the look, feeling it had potential, but I met with difficulty in transferring the dot font look elsewhere for the main content in the site. 

 

In all, I think the clear winner is the black PS3 one. I've not seen anything like that in my research for social networking sites, yes it is black and a bit typical look, but the added effects such as the glass buttons, the neon blue, and sophisticated gradients make it different, in my opinion. It looks stylised and this is why I favour it. Perhaps a little too much so, so that might need addressing shortly.

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