You may have noticed some slight design changes here over the past day, which are simply me band-aiding a situation where the external site that hosted some of our design files shut down, leaving a bunch of broken images and mangled CSS here. For now I've reverted to some native Ning design features and brought back an old header (above), but this strikes me as a good time to start the process of a proper redesign.
In Spring, Ning (which we're hosted on) will roll out a bunch of new design and functionality features, which should improve things here considerably. It still won't perfect, especially for very long comment threads, so we're going to launch some new forums for product/software discussion/support on the new manual/wiki site that we'll be previewing in a few weeks. These new forums will be based on a very good WordPress forum plug-in, so they should be a big step up from what we've currently got. And by pushing product/technical support to a separate site, DIY Drones can focus more on its original function on news and discussion about civilian UAVs and technology in general.
In the meantime, it's time to update our header. So I'd like to launch a competition for the best design. The winner will get an APM 2.5+.
Guidelines:
- Create a rectangular graphic (width 955 1,000 pixels, height anything from 100 to 200 pixels) that will replace the above.
- The name should stay the same ("DIY Drones") but the tagline should change to "Amateur UAVs, Contests, Products and More" Revision: I've had advice to lead with "community", so let's try this: "The Leading Community for Amateur and Civilian UAVs" Another revision! After yet more advice, let's go with "The leading community for personal UAVs". You can use any style you think looks best (caps or lowercase).
- There should be some image of a UAV. Ideally, it should look cool and "drone-like" but not look military or threatening. Fixed wing or multicopter, it's up to you.
- Post your submissions in the comments below
- The competition will run one month, until March 23rd
Last time we did this, back in 2010, we got some great submissions. I'm looking forward to seeing what the design talent in this community can come up with this time!
Comments
+1 for any Petrus design.
Perhaps a gallery of the best Chris?
+1 for michael
+1 for petrus
could you try a (half) forth row and at "... and more" because we also have balloons and maybe aqua vehicles in the future. i also like plane, copter, rover more than ardu... , it looks cleaner ...
My understanding is that that is more appropriate talk for the forums & blog. The center of focus should be branding of the core effort of bringing APM drones to DIYers & guests. E.g., note the current menu items.
Note the guidelines above, they are quite explicit:
For you to decide:
You can use any style you think looks best (caps or lowercase).
cool and "drone-like" but not look military or threatening.
Fixed wing or multicopter, it's up to you.
In other words, you are free to choose.
Not for you to decide
name should stay the same ("DIY Drones")
tagline should change to let's go with "The leading community for personal UAVs".
It's true that that is in conflict with
"DIY Drones can focus more on its original function on news and discussion about civilian UAVs and technology in general."
But critical editorial decisions are not up for consensus decision. The identity of "community of DIYers" is present in a superposition of enchantment & perplexity with the product line to keep things interesting & less one dimensional. It's all quite wonderful. And if it helps to bring in more money to the community, why change the formula?
While I very much like Petrus' contributions and those of other members, I thought the purpose here was to identify this as a "community of DIYers"... rather than to associate with 1 particular product (such as the arducopter/plane/rover code base). While I personally do use this, I also use other products and build custom vehicles (of all types)... as do others in this community. On this basis I don't think the banner should highlight any specific product, but perhaps should reflect what we do as a community. Am I alone in this line of thinking?
+1 for the last image done by Petrus
The 3 colors for each variant are great.
Wow Petrus you have my vote! really like the last one but lose the arduXXX branding... Now would you have a look at my webstore and fix it???
:)
hehe wow I really dig it!
Dany
I very much like the one with the Ardupilot branding. It says in an instant what the site is about, while the others are misleading & confusing, especially when combined with the name. This will directly increase revenue by bringing instant visibility to the 3DR products for those just passing through. Increased revenue -> increased valuation/acquisition target -> more full-time developers -> better software.
In addition I would ditch the Ardupilot name as refers to essentially defunct Arduino association. 3DRpilot or something which evokes a more industrial strength feel would be appropriate to a machine which aims to do more.
I like the color on the last one, with planes, copters, rovers angled wording from the top one.
Nice job!
JC
I like the first one if the plane wing wasn't cut off... not sure about putting the sub brands on top of the different craft.. seems to limit furture growth and limit the scope of the site to those things, instead of a more general drone repository.
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