Of course because I’m a fan I already know the existing fan sites and how they look like so I don’t have to search them on Google. I picked out two fan sites and her official site to explain what I think is good about the sites and what’s not (design, font choices, the working of the site etc) and I’m going to use this information for my sketches which I’m going to make later on.
-First example.
I’m going to start explaining her official “page” because this is the one I want to improve. I made a screenshot of the site now:
What I noticed directly is that it takes quite a while before the site has loaded, so I would make preloaders instead.
Now I’m going to say what I think about the looks of the site: The background which you first can see is pretty chaotic in the first place but when the site is loaded there’s not much left of it, the whole site overlaps the background. As you can see there are a lot of advertisements on the site, which is in my eyes ridiculous and cheap-looking for an official site about Pink. Certainly not something worthy of her weight, the design looks a bit like a Myspace layout (not professional, original or classy at all). The first look of a site is very important and I think a lot of people will click it away because it just doesn’t look good, it doesn’t attract people. The use of fonts and the site accents are balanced out as much as in the feminine aspect and the banner looks like it’s made in 5 seconds.
About the content: A lot of parts of the site gives errors so people can’t even see some parts at all. There are pop-ups for every picture, video etc what you want to see which is annoying. The pop-up for the music player on the main page is the worst, the site is online for months now and from the beginning there’s music from Nick Lachey on it though the title says it’s one of Pink her songs. The news was double a couple of times and totally isn’t updated at all. The events list isn’t right and a lot of events are missing. You can see ratings and stories from fans allover the site which is useless since all the fans are on her message board, writing their stories and loading their pictures up.
In total I can't say something good about the whole site.
-Second example.
This is a fan site called PinkBrasil. A screenshot of the site:
When I come on this site I’m getting a pop-up with spam immediately but it loads fast and that is a plus point.
About the design of the site: The site overall looks good and because of the use of soft colors it looks like it’s in peace- maybe a bit too peaceful for this lady. The design of the banner really looks great and original but just like the navigation it's too big and blocky. The font use is standard, simple and like I said the one in the navigation looks too huge compared with the texts in the rest of the site (those are a bit too small to read).
The building of the site is easy: on the left side there are a lot of links- a bit too many and in the middle of the site stands the information with not making it boring to read by using pictures once in a while. If you click on index, pink, site or vote in the navigation the whole site automatically goes back in the language from Brazil which is a shame. The sections, gallery and forum are both pop-ups which is good because those sections are huge but I wonder if they couldn't build them in the site.
I think the navigation/site is a bit limited (I miss her music) and the content is targeted for fans and not for people who don't know who she is. But they keep the site up-to-date and the site works very well, I didn’t run into errors.
-Third example.
This is also a fan site but then for Germans called Pink Music. Here’s a screenshot:
http://www.pink-music.de/My first impressions are that here are also Google ads and an advertisement to win a Meet&Greet even though the contest is over and that the site has loaded really quickly.
The graphics are really good, original and stylish but they are mostly taken over of the cover of her latest album I’m Not Dead. The fonts are simple but they fit with the design so that’s good. The navigation is easy and clear, though the content isn’t updated for a while which is a shame. As well in the tour section they only took the dates where Pink comes in German only, the whole site is build for Germans. You go through it really quickly and you don’t stay that long, the content is a bit minimal. A real plus point is the “music+video” section where you can listen to teasers of her music, I only miss that last touch in this case this is the lyrics of her songs.
-After the research.
I'm going to take all these points of my research with me to my sketches and ideas. I already have a bit of an image of what I want to put on the site and how it should look like(in my mind), so now it’s time to actually put my thoughts on paper and work them out on the pc. It should become a clean, personal site and keeping it up-to-date is very important. It should be designed for Pink, about Pink and no one else. I want the design to reflect the power of her voice and personality.
