Some Minor Touch Podium Changes (Don’t Worry, Nothing Too Big)
by Jody Mitoma on August 31, 2008 at 10:05 pm
The above image is a bit of a treat. It’s an image of Touch Podium in its early stages. Very early stages. Oh, how we’ve grown since January. 
Now, as you’ve probably already noticed, we’ve made a few minor changes to the site.
First off, the entire header has been revamped.
I’ve gone and removed the top navigation bar which was previously found just below the header image. The links previously found within the navigation bar are now found on the left-most sidebar, at the very top. (Don’t forget to check out our Snapture Screenshot Contest found in red, bold text!)
I’ve also touched up the main header image, gave it a soft shadow, thickened the text a tad, and darkened the circle around the tittle (the dot on the letter “i”) (which is meant to look like the iPhone/iPod Touch “Home” button), and gave the website a more basic catch line. Straight to the point.
In replacement of the top navigation bar, I went and gave the very top of the website a bit of a shade, making it stand out a little bit more than the rest of the website.
I’ve also removed the links from the very bottom of the website layout, as they were not being used enough to have them there in the first place. The links were simply duplicates as to what could be found at the top of the website anyway.
While in the process of cleaning up, I’ve removed a couple pages as well. One of the pages being the videorials page, as it was not receiving enough hits from our viewers, and the other page being the Product Support page. I feel it’ll take far too long to fill that page up with the contact information of hundreds of companies, and would not be used enough to be of much use, thus I vanquished it entirely. I hope no one minds.
While we’re in the midst of making some changes, why not give us your opinion on what we could do to make Touch Podium better for you. We’d love to hear what you’ve got for suggestions, and will take any and all of them into consideration.
Thanks readers, for always coming back. It feels like just yesterday we reached our 600,000th hit, and already today we’ve hit our 650,000th.
Now, back to the news.
Update:
After fiddling around with new background ideas for more than an hour, I’ve finally come to a decision with the background you see around this very post. Subtle grain, diagonal lines, and faded effects, just as the last background had, but with an upgraded effect.
If you enjoyed this story, join the growing number of subscribers to our RSS Feed for live updates!Related Stories:
Posted in Announcements
September 1st, 2008 at 8:12 am
looks ok but i prefered the navigation bar at the top (sorry)
Do you want me to redo the apple-touch-icon.png with the new graphics?
September 1st, 2008 at 1:24 pm
The header changes and removing links at the bottom were good choices.
However, the white background loads very slow for me and a lot of the time I find myself trying to read text on a purple background for a few seconds before the white part finally loads.
Purple..eh, not my favorite, especially with scanlines in the background. Touch Podium can do better than scanlines.
The rest of the changes are nice. Looks good.
September 1st, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Christopher — Thanks for expressing your opinion, but I don’t think we’ll be bringing back the top navigation bar.
Sure, feel free to redesign your icon graphic.
–
Dustin — Thanks for expressing your opinion as well. You’re right, the main page’s white background does take a bit to load at times and I’m not sure why, but we’ll be sure to look into that as soon as possible.
I’ve used the same color as the logo’s “Touch” text to try and keep with the theme. Don’t want to introduce too many colors to the website.
The scanlines have been removed per your request. (See, we do listen!) I’ve completely designed a new background this afternoon, and would love to hear your opinion on the matter.
We’re still all ears about further suggestions!
Thanks again.
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:19 pm
i have to say that i hate this new background. The old one was really beautifull. Could you “consider” changing it back?:)
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:25 pm
There is simply no way to please everyone.
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:29 am
Yeah i love you now! ill send a third logo! Please leave it 150×150
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Bleh, I just don’t get how scanlines make the background better? The way you made the background before you put the rough grain and scanlines back on was much better. I mean, not even Apple would dare put grain and scanlines on their stuff. It doesn’t make the background look dynamic or intriguing. It just makes it look busy and rough, completely different from the purple it fades into. Maybe also add a CSS property to the background image such as
background-attachment: fixed;
so that the background image doesn’t go upward when you scroll down. At this point, not sure if I would even like the background fixed, the scanlines just block out whatever you have behind it.
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Having a fixed background will greatly reduce the speed and quality of the website, which is why we haven’t done this already. We’ve given it a try, and we in fact did notice great reductions in speed.
Also, we’ll take into consideration your hatrid for scanlines and grain, but not right now. We’ve got other things to take care of.
Thanks for your opinion, Dustin!