My guide to a "cool" website.

Ok. I wrote this thing. This is not meant to offend anyone, in fact, I'm pretty sure it can't be applied to anyone here.

The "How to appear cool to your peers through a personal website"
By Malevolent Jester aka Slonik

1. ‘Pick some colors. Actually, pick three. Not more, not less. They all must match, have the same tone and hue. They can’t be annoying – but rather trendy, calm, peaceful, and cool.
2. Find a photo. This must be a big photo of anything. Anything at all will do. Now, take that photo open it in Photoshop and pick out a small piece of it. Just a nice rectangle – it cannot be the whole thing! Must be a piece. Put a border around it, in either black, white, or one of the three colors you chose in step 1.
3. Take this picture and in a corner – any corner put your site’s name. Which leads up to step 4.
4. Your site’s name. It can’t be “Bill’s Website” or “Nancy’s Blog” – no. Then you peers will not find you cool. It has to be something original, something that makes you seem trendy and unique. It cannot be relevant to anything in the website. For example “Where’s the Exit?”. It could, however, be a quote from a movie or book or TB show you like. However, it has to be a quote that only you know. Other people cannot know this quote. If it’s a quote that everyone knows and thinks is cool, then you will not be found cool at all.
5. On the actual website you need to have it setup this way: under the rectangle picture piece you will have some frames. Now, these aren’t any simple old frames! They all have really cool scroll bars. Scroll bars that show off your originality and coolness. Now, this might be tough. It can take you upwards of an hour of playing around with color codes and inputting them into the simple 15 lines of CSS.
6. Frame content. In one frame you must, I repeat, MUST have your blog. Here you will write things about yourself, your family, and your surroundings that people absolutely don’t care about. You will organize this by day. If you really want to be cool, then you will organize this by time as well as date. Now, if you’re into the hardcore coolness – then you get some emoticons (or smileys) to represent your mood at each of the days or times. These emoticons will show how you feel using simple circles with mock up human facial features. Again, if you’re into the tremendously cool scene then you will, brace yourself, make these YOURSELF! After making about 8 of your emoticons you can feel cool enough to offer them to other to download.
7. In the other frame you will have a shout box. This shout box will be public. Here, people can leave comments that extend to such an extent of brilliance as “OMG ur site is soooo kewl :p” or “man, these emoticons rawk :D”. Here, people will post their superficial comments about your website, thus, making you feel cool and appear cool to peers that read these comments. A major self esteem booster.
8. Now, you might ask, what about the navigation? Ah. This is precisely the same thing that your peers will think. Your navigation will be so inticately placed that at first glance… it’s as if you have no navigation at all! However, upon further inspection of your website people will notice very small, trendy font somewhere. The placement of this trendy font as navigation is up to you. This is where you can truly control your coolness.
9. But where will the navigation lead? Ah. It will lead to only 2-3 pages. One must be the “about” page, and the other must be your “portfolio” page. Let’s discuss each one individually.
10. The “about” page. Very simply. Here you will write facts about yourself that other people don’t care about. From your age, to your favorite color, to your favorite movie, to your favorite letter in the alphabet. People don’t care. Yet, when they see it – they assume that the information they see makes you unique. Unique and cool amongst your peers – exactly what we’ve been trying to get at.
11. The “portfolio” page. Here, you will post your crappy “artwork”. Crappy in a relative sense. To a professional artist, or web designer, or anyone with at least some artistic taste it will appear as splatters of **** made with Paint Shop Pro. Yet, when your artistically ignorant peers will look at it – they will be amazed. They will instantly proclaim you as a Photoshop master, thus, making you cool even more.

finally man..took ya long enough :D

Here you will write things about yourself, your family, and your surroundings that people absolutely don’t care about

Thats my fav line! It so true like 98% of the time.


Also dont jack on PSP. I started on psp (unlike all the hax0rs w/ PS these days lol. cost me pretty bill too). Its *almost as good as PS....just gotta have the talent use it.

Wow...

holy crap i failed miserably on my quest for a cool website.

/me goes to pick 3 colors......;)

you should take your own advice on your website.

1. I have about 3 colours. The are all a blue hue. They work well together. It's called not being tacky.
2. I don't have a photo, its an illustration I did. I like it and thought it deserved to be on my header.
3. I titled my site
4. Lucky for me my title is relevant...phew.
5. Uh oh, my scrollbars match my blue...now Ive gone and done it.
6. Damn, the friends and family I sadly had to move away from get to read about my life in my little news section. I guess they would prefer a generic email sent to everyone. I guess trying to keep a connection with people important to me is frowned upon.
7. Gotta take the shout box out. Don't want to hear from my good buddy who is overseas in Korea. For that matter, I guess I don't want to hear from any of my close friends that I can no longer see regularily anymore.
8. I got lucky here, my unobtrusive san-serif font cant be considered trendy, can it?
9. Phew, more then 3 pages, but not many more.
10. My profile page is pretty lame and generic
11. Lucky for me, my portfolio isn't cluttered with the crap you described. Thankfully I am an entry level designer with some semi-ok work.

Yikes, I fit a lot of these profiles. I knew I was a poser and a sheep in real life, but I'm shocked that my internet alias is as well. I hope you all think I am cool, just because of my website. Actually, I dont. Im not a web designer by any means. My ability to make a site like Pekkas of A-Peks just isn't gonna happen anytime soon. So like the poser I am, I ganked the generic ideas that people used and coded up a crappy little site. And I'm proud of it.

ok i go back and read the list and it turns out i'm pretty cool.

and spectra: no cool for you!:eek:

LoL!
i hate the word cool...you actually used that word 17 times, it must be a new record!
I love the "then you MUST do this"...lol!
Damn I'm not cool because most of those steps didn't match my site...Well I guess I have to make a new one then!

However, upon further inspection of your website people will notice very small, trendy font somewhere. The placement of this trendy font as navigation is up to you. This is where you can truly control your coolness.

this is so untrue ... so untrue it hurts my kidneys! .. lol .. why try to hide the navigation with "very small" and trendy type?

anyway, my site doesnt match this either, and im happy with my site actually ;)

is verdana trendy? I gots verdana all over the place
no shoutbox
I do have a news section but I only use it to announce when I finish something or to thank people for adding my link - they would care I think...
everyting I put on my site is made by me

whoa - just thought of something - it could be that opposing trndy with all might might lead to a new trend - the no trendy pics/font trend:D