23 replies to this topic

[Kevin Leclair]

What does everyone think about the current state of the website? Are there things that you would like to see added, removed or changed?

If so it would be greatly appreciated if you could provide some feedback to us so we can improve the website to ensure it is meeting everyone's needs.

[s3d]

I am new here but the home page seems too long. Maybe trim it back, it would make for easier reading.

[Kevin Leclair]

Thanks for the feedback, I will see what we can do to trim it down some.

[Kevin Leclair]

I have re-organized the forums and downloads section structure. Hopefully the consolidation of some of these sections will make it easier to navigate.

I am still working on a solution for the homepage. Keep the feedback coming!

[Kevin Leclair]

I have scaled the main page back to 7 recent frontpage news topics rather than 10; this shortens up the main page some so hopefully this will help.

I will continue to investigate other options to see what else we might be able to do.

[Rave1]

Thanks Kevin, The Shirt came awhile back,I was the May contest winner.It looks great on her,now my kid wants one too.Christmas,Birthdays would make great gifts.Craig

[Kevin Leclair]

You're welcome, glad you received it and like it!

[STEPHEN X-20]

Kevin,
I just received my logo sticker yesterday and my wife doesn't like it. She didn't even realize that it was for a website until I showed her the "SPORTBOATS.COM" in fine print. I am fairly new to this site and don't want to offend anyone, but how about a logo contest? I just thought it might be interesting to see what people on this forum could come up with that would be easily readable and draw more attention to the site. This could be done by tweaking the current logo or starting from scratch. What do you think?

Just an idea,
Stephen X-20

[Kevin Leclair]

Stephen,

First off let me say no offense taken, we greatly appreciate any feedback.

I am sorry to hear your wife doesn't like the logo, we put a lot of effort into creating an effective logo about 2 years ago. The "sportboats.com" was done small in effort to put more emphasis of the brand of our boats. We paid a graphic designer to create our logo and this is actually our 2nd version of it, our initial logo and slogan is posted below. We ran the old logo and slogan from 2003 - 2008, in 2008 we completely re-designed the website and the logo and slogan you see today are the ones that were chosen then. Our website went through another major re-design at the beginning of 2010, which we chose to stick with the same version of our logo and slogan since we have been very happy with it.

 post-30975-1208536353.gif   1.74KB   3 downloads  post-30975-1208536346.gif   5.23KB   3 downloads

As far as a contest, we did something similar back in 2008 with a group of graphic designers - this is how we came up with our current logo and slogan. This can be viewed here, http://www.neowin.ne...osportboatscom/ Some of the other "non-chosen" logo submissions are still there if you wish to take a look but most of them have been removed because that contest took place about 2 years ago.

While we don't currently have intentions of changing our logo and slogan at this time because we feel this is who we are. I am however open to holding contests to design other variations that would be easily readable and draw more attention to our website for uses on gear such as stickers, t-shirts, etc. How does this sound?

[STEPHEN X-20]

Sounds good! Can you send me a copy of the logo so I can show you what I had in mind?

Thanks again,
Stephen

[Kevin Leclair]

Sure thing, I have attached the black version of the logo that we use on all of our gear.

 logo_black.png   14.83KB   3 downloads


I believe we have the option to use the white logo on some of the gear that offers a dark background so I have included this too.

 logo_white.png   14.83KB   2 downloads

[STEPHEN X-20]

I'm not a graphic designer so I had to use a combination of Microsoft Paint and my daughter's markers. Here is what I came up with as an idea for an updated logo:

 newlogosmall.jpg   22.99KB   10 downloads

[Kevin Leclair]

This looks good Stephen! Do you want me to try to put it on a sticker?

[STEPHEN X-20]

If you're going to do that, let me try to clean it up a little and I will send you a higher quality image. Let me know if you want me to e-mail it to you directly or just post it here.

[Kevin Leclair]

Thanks, sounds good. Yes please email it to me at info[AT]seadoosportboats[DOT]com but also post it here in case someone else wants to use it in their signature.

[STEPHEN X-20]

 logosm.jpg   79.5KB   5 downloads

[Kevin Leclair]

Thanks Stephen, this looks good - just need to find a way to remove the light grey background around the boat.

[STEPHEN X-20]

I messed around with it a little this morning and I think I wil be able to get the background transparent, but it will take a while around the tower. Hopefully I will get it done in time to try it on a t-shirt!

[Kevin Leclair]

Sounds good, thanks!

[Kevin Leclair]

How's it coming along Stephen?