Tv Ark Relaunch

Certainly THIS Forum, Continuity Booth, the new Ultimate LWT and my own Carbuncle all use the whole width when viewed in 1024.

Agreed though, that I suspect that's because of a "100%" setting, rather than specific 1024 wide design.

Also, everyone please note that the word I used was "surprised" that they hadn't followed others in getting wider. I didn't state whether I felt it was good or bad, yet you all appear to be assuming I thought it was bad. NOT necessarily so. I wasn't being an "anal retentive picky bugger".

I, personally, like the "100%" setting idea, as that caters well for viewers set to ANY width screen.

Grey has nothing to do with it. The site has never been interesting when it comes to design. The site does what it does well with its content, but the way it presents the content is uninspiring and is boring.

They advertised the new look as an evolution, and the final result is pretty much an anticlimax.


Give me content rather than style any day (as long as the design is clear and logical).

For such a vast site (content wise) they should have and could of taken a more sophisticated and stylish approach.

Design wise, the site has always felt like it was the underdog, and this new look, adds nothing to the site, and as much as it was needed, it doesnt help the old design's problems of being boring and messy...


I dont remember when this became a personal tit for tat, but you are entitled to your opinion. I personally cannot find anything distinctive or memorable about this design, which means it hasnt got that "spark" or special touch which makes the design stand out...

I was once told good web design is one that is accessible as much as possible to everyone even if it means pleasing the buggers who use 640x480 resoultions!

I don't think a TV pres website should have a design which should stand out. It should be a site which is easy to use, and clearly presents the content.

In what way is it 'messy' - I don't see it that way at all.

Also, I would have said that the design is classy and sophisticated. The clean and simple look is infinitely preferable to those cumbersome over-designed sites loaded with irritating flash graphics which add nothing except long download times.

Let's not get started about the TV Room Martin - I found the old look perfectly acceptable - it was good. Now the current design IMO is tacky - being on 56K means I have to wait for the entire page of what I am looking at to load before I get to the bottom and change links - I liked it the way it was. All these new stuff added to it - Mocks etc were not needed in my opinion as it takes such a long time to load anyway.

TV Ark's new look is better that the TV Rooms. Snazzy and classy - although it takes quite a while longer to load. Well done TV Ark Crew.

Unfortunately, most people did not find the original look of the site acceptable. Let me tell you, it was virtually universally slated at the time. A similar story when TV Room opted for grey last summer.

You claim that one of your key objections to the current TV Room design is that the pages take too long to load now. Yet you go on to remark that TV-Ark pages now take longer to load than they did before. For some odd reason, in TV-Ark's case this is acceptable.

Your comment that the links at the foot of the page are the last thing to load. Not something I have ever experienced. The links at the bottom of the page will appear with the main structure of the page - i.e., you do not have to wait until all the images load. The links will appear quite quickly.

I'm sorry I brought your site up, but I felt I had to after reading mdta's comments about TV-Ark not having "the spark". The way he said it seemed rather arrogant, particularly as I think his work on The TV Room lacks what I deem to be "the spark".

I think that sites such as this should be judged on their ease of use rather than their gimmicky graphics, and I have to say that the new TV-ark is a vast improvement. Also, I haven't experienced any slowness in accessing the site, and I'm on 56k.

I didnt compare my site design to TV Ark's, nor did I claim that The TV Room has "the spark".

With The TV Room, I designed the site to Mike's requests and requirements, I did not get "free reign" over the whole thing.

The TV Ark's new look is better than their previous, but it could of been so much more impressive, and they could of worked out all the problems they had with the old design.

Although the grey look is OK, it does make it look a bit dull to be honest. Also, the quality of the material is not great either - for example this clip is really tiny and you can only just about make out the text on it. Surely if you were going to relaunch a site, you would revamp the clips too and make them of better quality and a higher resolution?

The trouble with revamping the clips with a site that big would take far too long in terms of man hours let alone getting the people involved to complete. The relaunch would probably be completed in 2005!

As for higher resolution, I think this question was asked before on the TV Ark forum and it was said that it was best to keep it at a certain size to keep download times down and bandwidth at an exceptable level.