Middle Earth Ranger Forum

Miramaren wrote:That's just beautiful! It really captures Tolkien, I think!

Elleth wrote:I LOVE that image!

Yeah, I ran across it on Unsplash. Royalty free -non-attribution hard to pass up.

Elleth wrote:The verse took me a sec: I was reading it in columns, and wondering why it seemed vaguely familiar. Oops.

Oops. Sorry. I Anglo-Saxonized it, I wondered if it would work. Maybe i should go back to the regular verse form?

Miramaren wrote:That's just beautiful! It really captures Tolkien, I think!

Elleth wrote:I LOVE that image!

Yeah, I ran across it on Unsplash. Royalty free -non-attribution hard to pass up.

Elleth wrote:The verse took me a sec: I was reading it in columns, and wondering why it seemed vaguely familiar. Oops.

Oops. Sorry. I Anglo-Saxonized it, I wondered if it would work. Maybe i should go back to the regular verse form?

Oops. Sorry. I Anglo-Saxonized it, I wondered if it would work. Maybe i should go back to the regular verse form?

.. I do like breaking it down to in-line couplets: I think it's just the gap in the middle of lines 3-5 that fool my eye into reading 2 columns. The visual symmetry is nice though.
Perhaps it would still look okay centered? I'm not certain. Or actually IN columns perhaps, like an old manuscript.

Also.. hunh. That picture for all the world looks like the highway along the Clearwater River between Lewiston Idaho and Missoula Montana. I wonder if that's where it was taken?

https://unsplash.com/photos/Ixp4YhCKZkI


It looks like it was taken by Steven Carter near Crescent City, Califormia.

It took me a moment reading the poem myself, but I liked it. Searching around, I found an excellent article about the poems and songs in LOTR, not sure where to put it lol I've only written one trying to emulate the Anglo-Saxon style, I will have to try more!

Ken

http://www.connotations.uni-tuebingen.d ... nn0232.htm

Working on the Home page again. Here's a responsive treatment of the logo forum name (meant to look good on mobile) I also tried a photorealistic take on Forum star. Thoughts?

I like the second for the forum and the fourth for the Wiki

Oh!

I thought that the versions were going to be displayed in both places, and we saw whichever one fit the screen width. Did I misunderstand?

I'm coming around to the new brooch, and I think I like the clearer text. I do kind of miss the parchment background, but I see why the change.

Elleth wrote:Oh!

I thought that the versions were going to be displayed in both places, and we saw whichever one fit the screen width. Did I misunderstand?

I'm coming around to the new brooch, and I think I like the clearer text. I do kind of miss the parchment background, but I see why the change.

It was probably me that misunderstood.

caedmon wrote:Another stylistic take on a front splash. Thoughts?

If wishes were fishes, and they aren't, I would love a landscape such as that, with one of us, in full kit, traversing across the land. I mean I love wilderness landscapes as much as the next man (perhaps more), but we are about getting out there in kit, right?

By the way, I prefer spelling out as "Middle Earth Rangers Forum" wherever possible, rather than just saying "MERF". That doesn't mean much to most people. Yet.

And plus, there are lots of "LOTR" and "Hobbit" fonts out there that may be more evocative and easier to read than the one we are using.

Kortoso wrote:
If wishes were fishes, and they aren't, I would love a landscape such as that, with one of us, in full kit, traversing across the land. I mean I love wilderness landscapes as much as the next man (perhaps more), but we are about getting out there in kit, right?

That's a good point. The rationale behind this image was that it does a good job of evoking the wild, and doesn't prejudice newcomers with specific kit assumptions. This forum treads a fine line between the reenactment and fantasy sides and when front images were being discussed.

That said, many images have been submitted for the front page, I could pre-sort them for ones that would fit the site design requirements and submit the top 5-10 to the forum for a vote. (This would likely be in a week or so)

Kortoso wrote:
By the way, I prefer spelling out as "Middle Earth Rangers Forum" wherever possible, rather than just saying "MERF". That doesn't mean much to most people. Yet.

This is for a responsive design strategy. It allows for different displays at different screen sizes. If you are looking at a desktop or laptop you get "Middle Earth Ranger Forum", for Tablets and phones in landscape mode you get "Middle Earth Rangers", and MERF is only displayed on phones in portrait mode.

Kortoso wrote: And plus, there are lots of "LOTR" and "Hobbit" fonts out there that may be more evocative and easier to read than the one we are using.

I would be happy to entertain suggestions. The base requirement is a free rustic uncial with interesting diacriticals.

Elleth wrote:Oh!

I thought that the versions were going to be displayed in both places, and we saw whichever one fit the screen width. Did I misunderstand?

No, you're right, that's exactly it.

Elleth wrote: I'm coming around to the new brooch, and I think I like the clearer text. I do kind of miss the parchment background, but I see why the change.

I have no problem keeping the parchment if I can make it work.

I'm, honestly, leaning away from the parchment background idea, at least in my own mind, for the moment. I'm digging the new forum skin, and the title pieces you put together there look fantastic.

Definitely partial to the 2nd/Fourth.

I've been wondering if it would kill us to make a nice, clean-looking frontpage with simply the title and two large buttons on the green skin, without additional images, for the time being, while we work out where we'd like it to go from there. At present, the homepage has two links in the corner, and probably hardly ever gets hits because the forum is so regularly direct-linked. I'd start passing out middlearthrangers.org by itself if we had a simple, presentable homepage; little easier to remember, etc.

Greg wrote:I've been wondering if it would kill us to make a nice, clean-looking frontpage...

It might. We are rather delicate.

Ok, I hear ya. In the interest of not staying in 1993 web mode forever, I have posted something. It's rather rough and is pretty sketchy for mobile landscape. But works everywhere else. I don't consider this final, and would welcome feedback.


http://middleearthrangers.org

HOLY #^@(@&, BATMAN.

Jack, I dare you to take that down. EVER. My jaw LITERALLY dropped.

I'm sold. Time moves quickly, and if we want to be able to scroll down to a few other bits of content later, so be it...but I think you've made a winner.