YC Design Prototype

As far as the first impression goes, I'd be tempted to think the font would dissuade people who are looking for a serious composition community, assuming they didn't have a positive image through word-of-mouth on their first visit. My suggestion that it would drive people away was, in retrospect, exaggerated (it might drive away the more shallow?), but I do find it gives an air of childishness that doesn't fit with the rest of the design, nor with what I perceive (and I think what chopin is aiming for) the site to be.

As far as the first impression goes, I'd be tempted to think the font would dissuade people who are looking for a serious composition community, assuming they didn't have a positive image through word-of-mouth on their first visit. My suggestion that it would drive people away was, in retrospect, exaggerated (it might drive away the more shallow?), but I do find it gives an air of childishness that doesn't fit with the rest of the design, nor with what I perceive (and I think what chopin is aiming for) the site to be.

Now that I agree with. Are you a fan of the color schemes? I want to know if I'm a minority with my opinion. D:

As far as colors go, my designer told me it looks a little too "brown" in his opinion, and that it is too hard to see. I will ask him suggestions on lighter colors, but now that we have a better design to go by, what colors do you see as attractive? I'm trying to avoid pure white if I can, while keeping some brown elements.

As far as the font, do you like the Young Composers font from my original prototype? I don't want something too boring and dull. Although I am going for professionalism, I still would like to portray a younger feel to the site. Note, younger feel, not childish feel.

We definitely need a logo, and I am inclined to push over the nav to the right, so we can fit the logo (as in my original prototype). I think the use of icons is a great step up, and rest assured that this will feel like a much more modernized site because we are replacing a lot of action items, such as drop downs, adding comments, etc, with real-time "ajax" refresh updates.

About that font - I think it's worth keeping, but I can agree that it doesn't match the rest of the site. The site has become more professional (so to speak) through continuing developments and aesthetic wise the bubbly round of the font contrasts too much with the simplistic, concrete square look of the boxes/containers/divs/elements. One should be matched to the other or an even compromise should be made (I'm in favour of 'bubbling' the site to the mood of the logo more with a bit of a compromise, rounded corners, maybe some localised roundy gradients.)

For colours, I've grown rather fond of the palette we have on the current forum, minus #ffebcd. I hate that shade. Unless you build the palette around it as in the 2006-2009 site, I was okay with it then. But I understand shades of colours are really the least of our concern at this stage.

MichaelAlex, chopin and James: re: Colour palette

Aside my previous comments, I rather like the brown-based palette. Considering chopin's designer's comments, though, I do agree that it seems a bit too subdued - lacking contrast.

chopin: If you're rethinking the colour scheme, I'd start off with a dark oak and a cream or light beige - or perhaps cherry and cream. Similar to the existing idea and the current forum. I wouldn't be too afraid to use shades that are very near but not quite white.

As far as the font, do you like the Young Composers font from my original prototype? I don't want something too boring and dull. Although I am going for professionalism, I still would like to portray a younger feel to the site. Note, younger feel, not childish feel.

One should be matched to the other or an even compromise should be made (I'm in favour of 'bubbling' the site to the mood of the logo more with a bit of a compromise, rounded corners, maybe some localised roundy gradients.)

Good logo design (as far as the title goes) isn't necessarily the use of creative typefaces, but often just creative use of typefaces. I think it'd be quite possible to make the site look friendly and informal using a more subtle font. I REALLY think the current font is over-the-top, all considered.

The thing that kindof gets me is the bar on the left, where it presents compositions by Genre, then by Form. Isn't there a more useful way to present music in a list? Or will you make the filters adjustable?

And, continuing the conversation about "bloatiness"... I agree with tokke that we really need to agree on what we want YC to be like BEFORE we implement these changes. And I also really like the way he said "This site should do five things perfectly, not 50 things in a mediocre fashion."

That being said, why don't we lay out, front and center, so we can clear this up, exactly WHAT these few things should be? What we really need to focus on. Because at this point I'd prefer to focus on what main features we have BEFORE we start arguing on font and color choice. No?

The five things I think we should focus on:

1. Showcasing music to the world

2. Reviews of said music

3. Discussion of music in general

4. A database of musical topics as pertaining to composers (Wiki)

5. Teaching about music. (Tutorials)

That's IT.

@Tokke: Showcasing music to the world or taking care that the appropriate music is featured on the site forefront? Because the former is a much broader topic than designing just the local website.

@Tokke: Showcasing music to the world or taking care that the appropriate music is featured on the site forefront? Because the former is a much broader topic than designing just the local website.

Showcasing music to the world. Why would someone bother to "showcase" their music now other than to get comments in a system? I don't know of anyone who doesn't have this mentality on YC currently, but if there IS anyone, PLEASE show yourself.

YC should be a place where I can upload my works and direct people to them and have them viewed in a (code) safe and professional way. YC currently doesn't do this which is why I have my own website for this task. Likely I would have both if YC improved, but as of now, I'm not comfortable showing off my music in a professional manner.

Why would someone bother to "showcase" their music now other than to get comments in a system? I don't know of anyone who doesn't have this mentality on YC currently, but if there IS anyone, PLEASE show yourself.

How about me? I never came to YC to show my music to the world, I came to see what fellow composers had to say about it so all I was looking for was

A. Upload my music.

B. Have other members comment on it and receive comparatively informed feedback from it.

C. Have my music visible enough on the site such that the above point can occur.

D. See what other composers are doing/listen to their music/provide help if I can.

Like you I went down the road of creating my own personal site to showcase my music to the world. Now I never finished it or "put it out there", as it's rather crappy yet due to my coding experience, but unlike you I never assumed YC was aiming to replace the function of a personal website. Now I know I'm not voicing the be all end all of YC, but I'm just showing you that different people see different purposes in this site. So I agree with your post with the five points except the wording of the first one.

Now last thing, if you mean showcase to the world as in it is YC's responsibility to get its members' music "out there", I think this is treading into a realm we're not ready for yet. If you mean you want the pages look presentable so you can just link your friends or musicians to the YC page of your composition, I think that's a perfectly acceptable goal.

Here's an updated design. The background is lighter and more colorful, we made room for a logo, there is a "canvas like" appearance now as the background, and we rounded some corners.

I'm still trying to figure out what the logo should be. As for the following list:

1. Showcasing music to the world

2. Reviews of said music

3. Discussion of music in general

4. A database of musical topics as pertaining to composers (Wiki)

5. Teaching about music. (Tutorials)

I'm going to simplify it for you even more. There is only one main goal I have for this site, and it is to publish and perform the works of Young Composers. The only way we are going to get there is if I can raise capital, and lots of it through this site one day. The only way this will happen is if we hit critical mass. The only way to hit critical mass is by investments, a little bit of luck, persistence, continuous improvements, an eager community, fewer naysayers and more encouragement, and last but not least, a way to connect the community in an intelligent way.

I'm not even going to lie.

I can totally see what the other users are saying about the font, it does look too childish.

Has anyone been on myspace lately? I know it's kinda dead, but this looks like a replica,

and not a good one.

The whole site just looks kinda cheesy and cheap, especially with the canvas background and that is something that our current site does not look like!

It needs a touch of modernism, just not the kind you're going for.

Fonts colors and edges do a great job with this.

I like what you did with the rounded edges with the prototype, but looking back on it now I see that the font does look a bit childish as some have said before, also I think the colors make the site look less modern as well.

Blues, whites, blacks, reds are all kind of in right now, why not experiment with those?

I hope I don't get slaughtered for my opinions. D:

In your opinion, what makes the design look cheesy and cheap? We don't have to use the canvas background, but I figured that a slightly textured background that represents a canvas might help portray that we are a site of the arts.

The font for Young Composers is something that can easily be changed, and this isn't set yet. Like I said, we still need a logo as well.

Blues, whites, blacks, reds are all kind of in right now, why not experiment with those?

If we used these mentioned colors, wouldn't the site look even more like the traditional sites? I don't want to portray "just another network". I want people to see this site as a site of the arts, not as a general network. I feel the usual blues/whites and blacks wouldn't make us stand out visually enough from the typical social network.

As for the color scheme of the new model, what do the rest of you think?

We are getting there ... slowly but surely!

I agree with Michael's post above. Could we possibly see a version of this which has a plain white background? Sorry if this is a pain to do. I think if we have a plain white background and then the user preference - you pick your colour for the rest (like the old old style (seems so long ago now) where we had dark red and I think wasn't it green and yellow? (I don't know I used red)), then this *might* work.

Until I see a plain white background though, I don't know.

If we used these mentioned colors, wouldn't the site look even more like the traditional sites? I don't want to portray "just another network". I want people to see this site as a site of the arts, not as a general network. I feel the usual blues/whites and blacks wouldn't make us stand out visually enough from the typical social network.

You want to use facebook traits like "like", sorry i mean ,"watch" systems, yet you refuse to change this octoberfest of a site because you want the site to stand out?

:hmmm: interesting. I agree with Charlie. A white background will be better than what we have now and i think we can combine it with other modern colors she and i mentioned above.

I like the current color scheme.

How about me? I never came to YC to show my music to the world, I came to see what fellow composers had to say about it so all I was looking for was

A. Upload my music.

B. Have other members comment on it and receive comparatively informed feedback from it.

C. Have my music visible enough on the site such that the above point can occur.

D. See what other composers are doing/listen to their music/provide help if I can.

Like you I went down the road of creating my own personal site to showcase my music to the world. Now I never finished it or "put it out there", as it's rather crappy yet due to my coding experience, but unlike you I never assumed YC was aiming to replace the function of a personal website. Now I know I'm not voicing the be all end all of YC, but I'm just showing you that different people see different purposes in this site. So I agree with your post with the five points except the wording of the first one.

Now last thing, if you mean showcase to the world as in it is YC's responsibility to get its members' music "out there", I think this is treading into a realm we're not ready for yet. If you mean you want the pages look presentable so you can just link your friends or musicians to the YC page of your composition, I think that's a perfectly acceptable goal.

You may misunderstand my wording. I never intended for YC to be a a replacement for a website. Indeed, no amount of awesomeness would be able to do that. What I think YC should do is act like a YouTube for music where people can showcase their works throughout the internet as a place that they can use to place their works online rather than having them stuck on their hard drives.

As for getting music "out there" that's not the point of YC. That's solely up to the invidivudla composer to network and get his music noticed. Could YC be a part of that being a place to direct peopele? Sure. But to act as a sort of publicity agency? No. YC was never that and never should be that, which is why I'm concerned about Chopin's goals to "publish and perform" the works of young composers. I always saw most of the young composers on here as not ready for performance and *certainly* not for publication. YC is here as an educational place where young composers can learn how to get pieces performed and published. Because in the real world, performances are garnered by real-life connections. I've gotten none of my performances over a social networking site; they've all been because I had a face-to-face relationship with somebody, and they happened to like the piece. From there the would schedule a performance. I've tried internet scheduling and it never works because when the relationship isn't personal enough, then the performance "promise" will fall through. And lets not even TALK about commissions, which is like performances times 100. Music is a very personal-relationship artform and thus can't be done in a better way than the old-fashioned (!) talking to people and being in the same room with them.

In re: publishing: I would never sign some deal with a "publisher" garnered through YC: the risks are far to great. I want to know WHO is working for my works and WHAT they're going to do with them. Besides, most of the "big name" publishers (Hal Leonard, G. Shirmer, Alfred, Universal Ed., TRN even) will never sign on to a random site on the internet. They have WAY too much money invested into their contracts to have anything to do with us lowly little guys. Besides, I don't want to be solicited through YC to get things published, I want to do it on my own. What YC can do in that department is to showcase the works and attract agents of the publishers. They have to solicit us, not the other way around.

YC is about learning about music, about furthering oneself in composition. That's all it ever has been and all it ever should be. If, Chopin, you intend to deviate this from being the #1 focus of this site, I really hope you fail because YC has no worth outside of that fundamental purpose: the need of young composers to learn about composition.

You may misunderstand my wording. I never intended for YC to be a a replacement for a website. Indeed, no amount of awesomeness would be able to do that. What I think YC should do is act like a YouTube for music where people can showcase their works throughout the internet as a place that they can use to place their works online rather than having them stuck on their hard drives.

Agreed! That would be nice!

This would be great for those like myself who are still in the education world and would like to show their works to teachers, other students, etc.

Also, If this feature does get treated, I think there should be a way to make only people who you want to view your compositions, see your compositions. For example, If I'm working on a collaboration with someone I'd like for only them to be able to access. Maybe an upload to thread versus select users from this list options. Those kind of things are wonderful!

Chopin's goals to "publish and perform" the works of young composers. I always saw most of the young composers on here as not ready for performance and *certainly* not for publication. YC is here as an educational place where young composers can learn how to get pieces performed and published. Because in the real world, performances are garnered by real-life connections. I've gotten none of my performances over a social networking site; they've all been because I had a face-to-face relationship with somebody, and they happened to like the piece. From there the would schedule a performance. I've tried internet scheduling and it never works because when the relationship isn't personal enough, then the performance "promise" will fall through. And lets not even TALK about commissions, which is like performances times 100. Music is a very personal-relationship artform and thus can't be done in a better way than the old-fashioned (!) talking to people and being in the same room with them.

In re: publishing: I would never sign some deal with a "publisher" garnered through YC: the risks are far to great. I want to know WHO is working for my works and WHAT they're going to do with them. Besides, most of the "big name" publishers (Hal Leonard, G. Shirmer, Alfred, Universal Ed., TRN even) will never sign on to a random site on the internet. They have WAY too much money invested into their contracts to have anything to do with us lowly little guys. Besides, I don't want to be solicited through YC to get things published, I want to do it on my own. What YC can do in that department is to showcase the works and attract agents of the publishers. They have to solicit us, not the other way around.

YC is about learning about music, about furthering oneself in composition. That's all it ever has been and all it ever should be. If, Chopin, you intend to deviate this from being the #1 focus of this site, I really hope you fail because YC has no worth outside of that fundamental purpose: the need of young composers to learn about composition.

I think this is where James' view about other members having different opinions plays in.

There are hundreds of publishers that exist in the music world and I'm sure there is at least one that could tie in with YC that could publish works that are fit to be published. Maybe even a few years down the road YC could even start doing their own publishing. I certainly wouldn't knock out the publishing aspects of Chopin's goal. This will make things tons easier for people like me that have no connections and probably won't have any connections until after degrees are earned and whatnot.

As for the performing, there I agree with you. I wouldn't want just anyone to perform my music, and like you said, negotiations such as those are just better executed in person.

As for getting music "out there" that's not the point of YC.

Why not make it a point?

In re: publishing: I would never sign some deal with a "publisher" garnered through YC: the risks are far to great. I want to know WHO is working for my works and WHAT they're going to do with them. Besides, most of the "big name" publishers (Hal Leonard, G. Shirmer, Alfred, Universal Ed., TRN even) will never sign on to a random site on the internet.

I was actually talking about us becoming our own publisher. If we could raise capital, this isn't far fetched, and I wouldn't have the need to work with Hal Leonard or Schirmer, we'd have our own standards. By the way, I have a relationship with Hal Leonard through the store I run, so we are not exactly a random site after all.

YC is about learning about music, about furthering oneself in composition. That's all it ever has been and all it ever should be. If, Chopin, you intend to deviate this from being the #1 focus of this site, I really hope you fail because YC has no worth outside of that fundamental purpose: the need of young composers to learn about composition.

YC is about all the things you mention, but why stop there? I'm not sure why you would want us to fail trying to better this place. My dream is to become our own publisher, control our own orchestras, and perform works through this site in the real world. This dream may never hit reality, but if the site ever hits profits, there is no doubt in my mind that I would re-invest to make this goal come closer to a reality.

Also, this "live feed" thing will give you an update every time a user creates a thread? What is the point of that? If we get the website as big and hip as we'd like it, this would soon become obsolete anyways, because there would be more threads coming in it would be hard to keep track of them. This whole "live feed" thing sounds like a space-waster. If we want to see what new threads are created, why don't we just, um.... go to the forum?

Well, excuse me, let me explain...

I know that in the thread about the live feed people voted "YES" more than "NO" but I think you can do it in a more effective way...This goes back to the "things we should focus on/ doing it efficiently."

Basically, what I mean is... If we're doing this live feed, let's not make it another forum. We don't need two... Make it's use one that is separate to that of the forum. The forum can tell us when someone creates a thread/uploads a piece. Give us something different for the live feed.

The feed will keep track of your fans and friends activity. Whether they create a thread, upload music, or recommend a work, you can keep track of their actions. You can of course use the privacy options to hide all of this. In fact, if you want to turn off the feed, this will be an option as well. In this case, I'm thinking turning off the feed will redirect the user to the public homepage.

One point about the feed being another forum. This is not true, the feed will act as a gateway to forum threads. However, there will be other uses for the feed, such as recommending works to other composers, or making comments.

Another feature we are going to add is "pinning content". Everyone will have a "binder" on their personal profile. Each time content on the forum or feed is pinned, this content can be tracked in the binder. This will act as a more efficient method to track watched content.

Why not make it a point? YC is about all the things you mention, but why stop there?

Because we're not accomplishing our goals right now. Let's get through designing the site, having it work properly, and making people happy before another endeavour is added to the growing list. Endeavours are good, but they can wait.

And what's this binder thing? Just call it "watched content" which is ideally the exact same thing as "feed". And what's "pinning"? Quit adding more confusing terms! :wacko: And again, you don't "friend" somebody, you go to their profile and click "watch user". Now every time they post a new thread, it feeds you a little notice. Or every time they upload a new piece or tutorial. Also, you show up under their "fans" list. OR I could go to one of their pieces and click "watch composition". Now every time anyone replies to/reviews that certain piece, I get a simple notice. Same with "watch thread". Nothing more than that because anything else would start to get too complicated.

Here's some of my comments on the last few posts.

On the layout:

- I don't mind the brown, but I'm not a fan of the canvas texture.

- Still don't like the font on the titles.

- Will it be possible to customize the organization of a user's compositions on their profile (other than by genre then form)? It'd be nice for users to be able to use custom tags/categories by which to organize their portfolio on the site. (That would require either textual headings or dynamic generation - probably via PHP's ImageMagick library.)

On YC's aims:

- My view of YC, for now, is as a community primarily. (Granted, I mostly lurk - I barely ever post.) I agree strongly with Tokkemon: for now, YC should focus on being a place to showcase one's work, exchange commentary, discuss and learn. As with James, I strongly suggest you complete your current projects re: this website and its tools, build this community and gain greater prominence before even thinking about greater endeavours regarding publishing, etc.

- re: Tokkemon's post: of course YC should have no general right to perform or publish works, or permit any other entity to do so, without the composer's explicit permission. By default, the user should agree to grant YC a non-transferable, non-exclusive license for rights only insofar as YC needs them to host and distribute works via the website. Of course, opportunities to be published or performed via YC's partners, for example, would be a plus for more experienced, serious young composers. However, see my last point.

Re: Chopin's last post:

- I agree with James that you should avoid terminology that is non-standard and not immediately clear.

- I would suggest you avoid using the term "pinning" - it tends to associate to "stickying" or "pinning" topics in a forum, i.e. forcing them to remain at the top of topic listings within a certain forum. It's also not an effective metaphor, nor a common one, for "subscribing" or "following" content.

- I suggest integrating all watch/fan/friend notices, recommendations, etc. into the live feed - no "binder" as an additional construct. Simply allow the user to view/filter various notices by type.

- When you say 'create a thread' for the feed, do you mean only topics related to uploaded music or new discussion topics as well? I'd suggest keeping different thread types configurable on a per-watched-user basis (perhaps a toggle for each forum?) - just because you're following someone's music doesn't mean you want to know their musings in the discussion-oriented boards, for instance.

MusicFiend: chopin's feed concept wouldn't show all new threads, but only those of watched users, in addition to other functions he mentioned above.

I thought very hard about the "binder" idea, and I also thought about merging everything into the feed. After a lot of thought and playing different scenarios in my head, the reason I chose against it is because live events will never get through to the user if the user has 10+ pinned/watched events. I chose the term "pin" because I thought it to be appropriate. You say that pinning is associated with stickying or pinning forum threads. Well, this idea is exactly the same, except users can pin or sticky their own threads into their binder, so I felt the terminology appropriate. If I find that the terminology is confusing, I will immediately adjust, but for now, I would like to see if people associate pinning threads in the forum with pinning threads in their own binder.

As for our goals, everything I'm doing now is in hopes we eventually get to the points I mentioned in time. Otherwise, had we not been planning that far ahead for what I would like to accomplish with this site and community, I would have left it a forum for life, and not place bets (by investing cash, and doing what I'm doing) into our community. Of course this may be a long shot, but this is a long shot I vowed to accept when I took over as owner. If anything, this is fun, and challenging, and I enjoy challenge.

Attached is another possible prototype I added onto, and I will submit to the developers/designers tonight to see what they think. The white background doesn't work with this design, I tried it, and it hurts the eyes because of the sharp contrast. However, I added a logo (I'm not sure if the "pin" is a little cheesy), but this is what trial and error is all about. I also implemented my original font, it doesn't look as cartoonish, but it has a young feel to it.

Hey chopin, when it comes to getting pieces "published and performed" how, and when do you plan on going about that? I think it would be nice for us to tie in to a publisher that myself and other composers can use when the time is right!

Also, I think the font is still cheesy. To be honest, I'm perfectly content with the font we have now.