Underwater Archives etc

[Mark Thorpe]

Hey guys,
With all the talk of underwater archives and dedicated 4k stock etc etc I thought I'd like to get some kind of feedback on delivery format. As you can see I've updated my signature to include www.oceanstockimages.com which is a collaborative web site planned with two others some time ago. Been having a heck of a time to get the web development company in check and uphold their end of the deal, that is to actually build the bloody site. So much so that we are pretty much doing it ourselves as we are already $7k in the hole with those guys and nothing too much from them to show for it.

Seeing as I'm also planning to build a site / company that will deal with the stock I shoot with RED underwater I'd just like to get ideas on the way the current site delivers the video clips etc. I only have the first page of clips embedded at the moment and am working on the others as we speak. The prices will also be updated in the coming days.

Any critique on the way its looking thus far bearing in mind this is our 1st Generation.

Cheers,
Mark.
Direct link to the video archives: http://oceanstockimages.com/store/c-...o-footage.aspx

[Adam C Lubkin]

Best of luck with this venture, Mark.

Feedback: I'm not crazy about the layout of the OceanStockImages home page. You have so many amazing images in your catalog. My feeling is that I'd like to blown away visually right away. I'm thinking larger images and a darker background. Do you have an image that could serve as a background, such as a vast underwater view free of distracting detail? Just a thought.

In the imageblog, having the text perhaps to the right of the images, and laid out cleaner, would help, and allow the images to be more uniform in size. I really like the content of the text. Informative, entertaining, and personal. And of course the images themselves are great. I don't think the white background is serving you well.

There are many others here with way more design skills than me, but that's my 2 cents. Hope it helps.

Adam

[Mark Thorpe]

Hey thanks adaml,
Great feedback. I'm not a graphic designer as you mentioned so its good to get ideas from everyone. I'll be putting all feedback into my agenda to go through with the other guys.

Thanks for taking the time.
Mark.

[Ken Corben]

I think the sight looks very professional - check out BBC stock footage site. Background is white - BBC uses way to much flash for my tastes though.

Of course clip management is key - just use the "other guys" site as an example of clip organization under various categories.

The QT compression and server seem to work very well except that the sizing of the "open new window to play clip" HTML is off by a few pixels (always test on multiple OS and web browsers to optimize feel and look).

I would perhaps offer the Apple QT links for version 7 on the main pages so viewers get all the advantages of the new QT codec.

Also, I think a one up on the competition may be an entire "about" page for each contributor - especially heralding the advent of 4K UW systems.

Provide footage owners with a standardized QT format guidelines and a GOOD FTP server for uploading images to your server, i.e., one of the bigger more reputable silicon valley companies with triple redundancy on power and back up.

Hope this helps/makes sense?
Where's my contract - I'm in (what's the split?).

[PaulClements]

On the Stock video footage page the text accompanying the images ought to be actual text and not part of the images. This way robots (Such as googlebot) will be able to read it and catalogue the pages with that information on.

White is a good colour to use in my opinion. Look at many of the stock footage places and alot of them use it, Getty images springs to mind. I also like the blue gradient behind the logo and feel that this could be used vertically on the left hand bar with white text for the news etc on top perhaps.

I'm a designer myself and ironically the best looking design isn't necessarily the best website to have. When something looks like it is designed to be functional and deliver the goods rather than look all flashy and in your face it is often preferred by the people using it.

Bits I might tidy up is make the left hand news bar slightly wider and lose the justification, make it all align left (This can be seen on the home and other pages). If needs be use CSS style sheets and make the font 1px smaller than it currently is so you can fill the lines a bit more. It's not a very good typographical technique to use such narrow columns that you end up with only 1 word per line, newspapers are about the only places that can get away with but even there it is avoided as often as possible. Justified text always leaves gaping gaps between words in thin columns and again looks unsightly.

Watch out for aligning the text with images. Sometimes the first line of the text aligns to the base of an image (Images blog shows this), you need to put in a line break <br> every so often so the text sits beneath. On the homepage I would use columns to seperate the image and the text so it doesn't overflow beneath, but continues down as a single column.

Where you have OSI or Ocean Stock Images in the text, as on the homepage, don't use that colour blue it's the colour is associated with links and makes the text look odd. Personally I would make it the same size and colour as the rest of the text and maybe italic and/or bold.

Avoid long paragraphs using Italics or bolds such as the Video Galleries top section.

I'd be tempted to enlarge the orange title text slightly.

Make sure all of your people have <emailaddress>@oceanstockimages.com rather than the hotmail addresses etc, looks more professional.

If you have the ability to make a favicon.ico that resembles your logo then I'd put this up as well. When people view your website in their browser it will have your logo in the address bar and on their favorites folder when saved. Just looks nice again. If you can't make one let me know and I'll knock it up in a few seconds for you and email it across, PM me your email if you like.

When using the search box you need to make sure that the results feed doesn't stretch the screen out too much. The images sit side by side and instead of dropping to a new line they make the page about 400% larger than screen width. Solution to this is either removing anything there which says "nospan" or adding <br> after each image to drop each one down and load on a new line.

These are all fairly minor things though so do not despair at the size of my thread! :)

The site looks good and works well, focus on delivering that first and the clients will be happy. You aren't selling your site, you're selling your services, footage and images afterall, which are top notch by the looks of it.

If you need any help with anything I'd be more than happy to give my advice any time, just PM or email me.

Cheers

Paul

[Mark Thorpe]

Hey Guys,
Thanks a bunch for taking the time. All points have been ingested, stored and will be addressed as and when I get the time.

Sharkguy: Once I nail the layout for OSI I will look to implement that on 4Koceanstock. SO far I am not talking collaboration with anyone without RED on that so that could be something to discuss as time goes on.

Paul: Really nice points in some areas, much appreciated.

Thanks all,
Mark.

[Ken Corben]

Sharkguy: Once I nail the layout for OSI I will look to implement that on 4Koceanstock. SO far I am not talking collaboration with anyone without RED on that so that could be something to discuss as time goes on.

My bad Mark - I misunderstood that you are developing independent sites - OSI vs 4K. I like the look for both and the input from red community has been spot on.

[Mark Thorpe]

Yeah, the feedback has been fantastic. I've already started implementing a few of the points.

Cheers,
Mark.

[Steve Gibby]

Hey Mark,

I outlined some basic concepts of web design for you on my post #192 of this thread:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthr...?t=562&page=20

Good luck with your efforts on that. A web site is never done. A web site is a dynamic enterprise - never static, always changing. Continual updates are a way of life when it comes to web sites. The cool thing is that those of us who shoot ocean images are marketing a very visually compelling commodity. Even landlocked people worldwide, who have never seen an ocean, are fascinated by the visual impact and life forms of the world's oceans. Those of us who have grown up on, around, and under the oceans somtimes become numb to their beauty - but watching the eyes of people light up, when they react to our ocean images, reminds us of just how majestic the oceans are.

Your images are excellent - best of luck with your web site efforts.

[PaulClements]

Here you go Mark, a little present :)

Right click and save, upload it to the parent directory (I.E. oceanstockimages.com/favicon.ico). Any page there after will have it show in the address bar or in tabs (Dependent on browser, I believe IE6 took it out by accident). If you are using Firefox you ought to see it in the address bar or on the tabs by clicking the link.