Draft 2 is much better, IMHO. Reasons why? (1)Blog on front page is crucial to me. Constantly updated and changing content is so important for this project overall, for those wanting to get involved and for those searching for this project. (2) I don’t appreciate the huge chunk of space given to our sponsors. They are important for obvsious reasons, but as a guest it confuses me as to who’s in charge, who I need to contact and what this project is all about. Plus, it doesn’t jive well with the flow of the page. The logos are too adverse within the context of the other color schemes and photos.

Here’s what I would revamp: (1) I’m not getting a great understanding of why I’m here and what the purpose is. The Title Header is there, but I’m not catching it directly. My focus is constantly drawn to the picture of the little girl which is great, but I don’t know who you are right away and why you exist. I think the title header should stand apart a bit more from the other headers. (2) With that said, I want to have a stronger draw towards the call to actions. The get ivolved, purchase art, exc tabs are much stronger in the updated version, but I feel like they may be lost a bit in the background and other titles.

I love the outline of Guatemala. I love the photos, especially the blended background ones. I wasn’t too sure about the pastels at first, but they are beginning to grow on me. What would it look like with a black background instead of the pastels? Once again, I love the blog on the front page.

Some more things missing: Where is the content driving engines to pick up on Indianapolis? Google may be more likely to send this to Guatemala than to Indianapolis based on content and titles. However, IndyMetro having a strong content base is great and will probably drive it towards Indy. The Athenaeum is going to get some good feed off of this too being featured heavily on the front page. I’m thinking heavily about SEO, but the blog will help immensely with that.

I love the connection with the 2 faded photos. People here in Indy & people from Guatemala. Great thinking there. I love the connection. Would we want to feature rotating photos in upper-left corner of IndyMetro working with the kids in Guatemala in a flash format style? In fact, could we make that entire top header scrollable, with multiple calls to action and content and photos?

What’s going on with the footer? Could we put sponsors there? Possibly some really relevant content? Who we are? Missions statement? Where we’re headed?

These are my initial thoughts on first view. Let me know if you have any questions! Overall, I love this and can’t wait to share it with others. Simplicity is awesome so feel free to disregard anything crazy I may have just said :)

I like alot of the changes in Layout 3 including background, headline location, and changing “blog” to something else. The footer looks much better and seems to be filled with some relevant content.

I think there is too much “white space” in the box in the upper right hand corner now, though. Maybe a couple extra lines of copy would help fill it. I also am a bigger fan of the style of the call to action buttons in Draft 2 than I am of Draft 3.