Habari | Design Week 01
This is the first (hopefully) weekly instalment of the comings and goings on in the Habari Design Community. As this was our first week ‘out’ it was obviously a pretty wild and exciting ride with an immense amount of interest from all people around the world. What’s fascinating to me is that the people at the table currently trying to shape the design aspect of Habari. We’ve got Michael and myself working on all things admin at the moment, with comments from the entire community. Bryan Veloso has joined the team and he’s going to be handling all the website related stuff (from main site to wiki design to whatever the hell else we can keep him busy with) and we have the truly talented Yoram who’s kindly offered to do the icons, so as far as I’m concerned we’re in pretty good shape regarding the graphical direction the project is going to have.
Logo
A great deal of work has been done in the logo department. However we’re still not really decided on the direction we want to take as the current options on the table haven’t been a unanimous ‘HELL YES’. There are merits to all of them but I think with respect to the logo it’s better to just wait for that one idea that jumps out at us and really makes us all smile rather than settling for a right here and right now solution. Here’s a few examples of what are on the table:
Installer
A lot of work has gone into the installer as well. I’m not going to comment on the design of the installers, because that’s out in the wild going through the motions.
We’re still hammering through these back and forth, but the idea is there, one click install, degradable JS that makes parts of the install appear as and when the previous section has been completed and verified.
Administration Panel
Very minor tweaks going on here, except of course the colours. The pink is displayed for when you hover over the log out button.
Publish
More work going on this part. We’ve been having a lot of discussions regarding the number of buttons we should have. The subtle addition to these mockups is the slider for the tags (think increasing/decreasing the tags on display).
Remember nothing is set, everything’s up for discussion. As always:
Good work! Keep on moving, guys!
↓ Quote | 14/1/2007
I have to say these are looking very good and I’m already feeling quite excited about the product. It looks a lot nicer to use than Wordpress does. Am watching with great interest.
Also, wanted to apologise for my no show in the IRC channel as you suggested. I was going to but Uni work has majorly kicked in so I can’t really spare the time to join how I would like to. Probably should’ve told you rather than just not showing.
I like how the logo is coming, maybe if I get some more free time soon, I can join the team ins ome way.
↓ Quote | 14/1/2007
This looks dead sexy.
↓ Quote | 14/1/2007
I love the fact that a crack team of visual artists are directly involved right from the start. It will clearly pay off at the end of the line when Habari is launched.
Looks fantastic thus far.
↓ Quote | 14/1/2007
I am so glad the Habari team is actually putting time, thought, and creativity into the logo, as opposed to just typing out the project name in somebody’s favourite font ;)
↓ Quote | 14/1/2007
Hehehe. BTW, there’s another logo coming in now based off a scribble from Doug Stewart. The work is never done.
↓ Quote | 14/1/2007
Can i make one suggestion? Have there be an option to auto-’more’ when X amount of lines are present. There would obviously be an option to set say…how many lines, pixels, words, etc.
↓ Quote | 14/1/2007
I forgot to ask if there will be an option to import my wordpress posts and comments. I guess i could get over it if there isn’t the option to, but it would be nice to not lose everything.
↓ Quote | 14/1/2007
I just wanted to say thanks to Khaled for doing the heavy lifting when it was only him, and for graciously sharing the work now that there is a cast of thousands. Also I think these updates are perfect, they maintain transparency, while encouraging new interest and input. Very nice.
One thing we (being the core dev team) wanted from the beginning was to have teams of talented, focused people working on what they do best. We have been very fortunate that the people we needed have stepped up.
As for the importer for WordPress, we have a fully functioning WP importer that works wonderfully right now, with more to come.
↓ Quote | 14/1/2007
Thats great to hear Chris, i could of handled starting over (been thinking about a fresh install for a few months now) but if i can save all of my posts, thats even better. Can’t wait to actually use this, i checked the requirements and aside from not finding an actual download/package, i noticed i need PHP 5. Unfortunately my host currently has 4.3.11 :(
↓ Quote | 15/1/2007
hey there keep up the good work. :D love what you guys are doing here
↓ Quote | 15/1/2007
the work so far is simply amazing.. I am already drooling over the new look.. I think i would like to start as a tester for habari. I have know previous knowledge of php or sql but i can find bugs fairly easily..
↓ Quote | 15/1/2007
Love the way this project is coming along, I’m watching with interest! I’ve installed a testbed somewhere relatively hidden, I’d be glad to inform of any problems I come across.
↓ Quote | 15/1/2007
I’m loving the 2nd logo :)
↓ Quote | 15/1/2007
Everything looks good, can’t wait to try it. :)
↓ Quote | 16/1/2007
It all looks lovely. Khaled - if you need a psd coded up just let me know.
↓ Quote | 16/1/2007
Good work so far :)
↓ Quote | 16/1/2007
malaka, i really like the logo!!
As i said before you have a gift for combining and contrasting colours.
Cant wait to see Mellow Assassin’s new look….
↓ Quote | 17/1/2007
Looking pretty sexeh! I don’t know much about Habari yet, but I will soon after sseing these pictures. Nice work Khaled.
By the way: Is that stuff in the admin panel standard Habari? Like the stats and the scheduling? I like it a lot.
↓ Quote | 18/1/2007
That is looking incredibely sexy. Even the installer makes me hot. Is that wrong?
↓ Quote | 19/1/2007
Great!!!
↓ Quote | 21/1/2007
Habari interface looks alot like the Shuttle project. this post is even tagged Shuttle! lol.
↓ Quote | 21/1/2007
Don’t like the logos, I must say.
The first one looks like an old war medal found at your grandma’s, and does not express anything related to Habari imo.
The second one looks too much brokenkodish, and I think it won’t fit well on various supports and sizes.
I think something has to be done with the concept of a megaphone which is something useful to spread the news :)
↓ Quote | 21/1/2007
Ozh said:
Wait till I post design week 2 :).
↓ Quote | 22/1/2007
It look great! but I love WP :D
↓ Quote | 22/1/2007
There are some amazing designs and styles coming out with Habari, I think it will be one of the best looking blogging platforms if nothing else ;)
↓ Quote | 22/1/2007
It looks nice :)
↓ Quote | 22/1/2007
Shouldn’t there be a new one of these?
↓ Quote | 22/1/2007
Yeah well I’ve been a bit busy writing damn manifestos :).
↓ Quote | 22/1/2007
It doesn’t matter how good it looks like. This is just a matter of templates.
As a developer I think a good CMS must have a good and well docummented API (and nowadays, AJAX featured, if possible). And also to be FAST (PHP is slow, and WP is rather slow if you use to many plugins).
Let’s see … I’m also expectant anyway. :)
↓ Quote | 23/1/2007
I just love the designs I hope aspects of them stay. It looks like a Jaguar. One thing that really bugs me with wordpress is having lower registered users seeing the admin interface.
↓ Quote | 7/2/2007
It looks good! Go on guys!
↓ Quote | 13/2/2007
great work! awesome ;)
keep on moving
↓ Quote | 21/2/2007
Looking forward to see that. I don’t really like the logo but I’m confident you’ll find some great ones. Keep the good work!
↓ Quote | 13/4/2007
I wrote a Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habari
↓ Quote | 13/4/2007