Since we are happy with the layout of our second attempt at a site design, we have been playing with colours. We can skin the theme quite easily with a different set of colours for different microsites. There are three different example sif you are interested, which show what a difference the colour scheme can make.
http://egyptological.com/magazine
http://egyptological.com/resources
I won’t say which colour scheme is attached to which site because we are experimenting with moving them around, but as of tonight (Sunday) we have:
- A swirly tourquoise background with a blue and green colour palette
- A Tiffany type stained glass background with a red theme
- A blue temple ceiling with stars and a generally blue theme
None of the colour schemes is final yet. All need further work. It’s obvious that the menu colour- a mustard yellow – on the blue star theme isn’t right. So obvious that it will have changed if you don’t read this in the next day or so. Generally, though, the themes still need refinement. There are titles appearing in the content that need suppressing or moving for instance.
(PS Andie wants everybody to know that the shockingly bright layout on the World of Hieroglyphs is entirely down to Kate and not her idea.)
The World of Hieroglyphs has a second sidebar on the right. That is because that site will eventually carry adverts in that space. The main sites, as you will see, don’t have that second bar because we don’t want adverts on the main site. (We are aiming to do this as well as we can not to make money from it.)
Initial content is even more of a pressing task!
Still, we have made a lot of progress since the last update. A good example of what has been done can be seen at http://egyptological.com/resources/egypt There is no content yet but the idea is to have a reference section. You’ll notice that this is a micro-site which has its own sidebar menu (as an addition to the main menu). We also can now have an additional single line of pages in an horiontal menu so that related pages can be placed side by side. The layout of the bar needs a bit of refinement, but it is getting there.
We feel as though we have been building this for ever. Getting a design we like has been hard but not as hard as creating a structure that can grow over the years to come.
PS if you have any comments on the design so far, feel free to leave a comment!
Egyptological Magazine Site Status 
I like the scheme that comes up from the second link. The bright pale blue colors are hard on the eyes.
George
Kate,
I find all three a bit hard on the eye to be honest. Did you get those colour scheme tool links I sent a while back? These can take all the hard work out of the process of creating a colour scheme and finding colours that go well together. Here is my favourite tool:
http://www.hypergurl.com/colormatch.php
Vincent
Andie and I are learning towards the blue stars with some tweaks.
@Vincent,
I don’t get on well with the colour matching sites. The tend to be overly conservative for my taste. They also can’t cope with the transparency I love in web design.