In the past two weeks we’ve had our closest Showdown, and our most-voted Showdown ever. So we’re a little hesitant to make any predictions about what this week will deliver… We’ve decided that it’s another of our all-time most popular themes – Gazette – that’ll serve as the canvas on which today’s battle will take place.
The two amazing modifications that’ll be squaring off against each other this week are the colourful SARocks (created by WooThemes co-founder, Mark Forrester) and the sophisticated and awesome, Quarterback Records. Since we’re fair and all, it’ll be Quarterback Records that’s up first…
Quarterback Records – Link (Micheal Sloane & Taylor Trask from Strategic Blend)
Quarterback Records
This is the second modification by the Strategic Blend crew that has been featured in the Showdown series, after they lost out in the very first week with their “The Station” modification. So hopefully they can give SARocks a run for their money this week again…
Quarterback Records is not your run-of-the-mill record label for hire. Abandoning the notion that one size fits all, Quarterback Records forges partnerships with artists to determine their ideal needs, and the most beneficial way to allocate resources to achieve high marks.
With a warm colour palette of yellows and oranges the site automatically reflects its hot, up and coming artists. With well designed graphics in both the home page featured slideshow and in the sidebar advertising banners, the site comes across very professional, important in wooing new artists.
The background image of a watermarked sketch of what resembles an American football coach’s handbook perhaps is reflective of its strategic approach at marketing its artists, it can however be misinterpreted and give off the impression that the site is sports related.
On the single post pages a calm, soothing creme colour is used as the background color of the content block with a serif font type chosen for the blog content, giving it a more corporate feel.
The site has not been customized with regards to its functionality, nor has any of it been moved to other places, but its styling alone gives it a unique look and feel.
Well done guys!
SARocks – Link (Designed by Mark Forrester)
SARocks
A quick note before reviewing the SA Rocks design – We certainly don’t want to come across as biased and say how awesome this design is as it has been designed by one of our co-founders. The site is run by Nic Haralambous, and fueled by his passion for South Africa. Any winnings will most certainly go to Nic.
SA Rocks is not a website dedicated to blindly praising South Africa. I understand that every country has flaws and I do not deny the flaws of South Africa. I do feel that there are enough people who berate our country and it’s time for people to start acting and thinking positively about South Africa.
When designing SA Rocks Mark wanted to adapt the rather corporate looking Gazette theme into a more vibrant, colourful one, reflective of South Africa, otherwise known as the rainbow nation.
A custom logo design with a hint of Superman powers comically showcases the good work Nic is doing for South Africans. With a radiant glow around the logo it pulls the eye further down the page into the content area. Immediately you will see the page navigation and category navigation one below each other, instead of either side of the logo and the default right sidebar has been moved to the left, an easy customization to make. By making these small changes it gives the Gazette theme quite a unique feel.
There is a prominent email subscription form in the right of the header space which encourages users to sign up for regular news updates.
The blog post boxes on the home page are neatly displayed using clean typography and a pale yellow background colouring. With some non-obtrusive Google ads in the single posts and a few tweaks to the post meta data the site has a nice magazine feel to it.
The sidebar tabber has been styled in blue and green, together with the rest of the colours in the design you’ll start to see the colour palette reflecting the colours of the South African flag.
All that is left for you this week, is to cast your vote below and leave some of your thoughts behind the comments. Go!
[polldaddy poll=1835172]
39 Responses to “Showdown Series (Season One): Week 5”
Both designs look good, but I like color scheme of SARocks more.
I’m getting a virus detection for SARocks (via tablemontain.net/gallery)
I am also getting virus alert for SARocks. BE ALERT. My vote goes to Quarterback Records.
We are probably the only 2 people who installed Avast Virus Software.
I use avast! and I’m getting the virus alert as well.
SA Rocks, for sure. The colors and the left sidebar mod and great!
WHAT?! there is not one gazette theme who arrived close to us, and you are not EVEN PUTTING US IN THE CONTEST ?! I can’t believe it !! SERIOUSLY guys ??! Since you are fair!!? haha obviously you taking someone from your Team ! IS IT FAIR ?? What is sick in Quaterback Records ?? NOTHING – they just add a background image and change the them color that’s it !! And traffic wise !? please 30 visits a day ? PFFF…
Anyways I was sure that you guys wouldn’t choose us, because we are not looking like gazette anymore, and that’s the point of the contest – Be sure to CHECK our (REAL) Mods at http://www.cyanatrendland.com
PS: im stopping my recurrent bill right now ! you guys loose a client – Ciao
Hey Trendland,
We love your theme customization and the fact it barely resembles Gazette anymore. It is really hard picking two themes for the showdown, and by no means does this mean they are the best ones. There’s plenty of Gazette creativity in the showcase – http://showcase.woothemes.com/category/gazette/ and these posts act more as teasers for you to see all the other wonderful customizations.
I’m hoping we don’t loose you as a club member and that was meant sarcastically
P.S. Make sure to also check out the Salvation Army Canada Gazette customization – http://www.salvationarmy.ca/
I think you’re being a bit unfair in your comments here… Whilst I can understand where they’re coming from, I think we can clear up a few things first.
1. I picked the Showdown contestants and all of them were picked from websites submitted to our Showcase. If you have a look here (http://bit.ly/13zemd) you’ll see that your current version (which is in fact really great) is different to the thumbnail on the Showcase. So unfortunately I didn’t consider your site based on that old thumbnail.
2. We definitely don’t pick contestants based on how close to look like to the default theme; in fact the contrary is true.
3. We contacted a list of potential contestants to find out who was responsible for the modification. Websites that responded had a better choice to be included in the Showdown.
4. The Showdown is definitely not only about winning and neither is it about elitism. Instead, it’s about creating a little fun & interaction around the great modifications that you guys & girls produce.
So sorry if you have taken offense from this. Your modification is indeed amazing and I hope to include it in Season Two of the Showdown (as we’ll only do one Gazette “episode” in a season).
I find it intriguing Trendland was able to quote the site’s daily visits when that information isn’t publicly available. Poor guy probably still thinks Alexa is accurate.
Also, woo guys – thanks for offering us up for showdown sacrifice again (I use that term lovingly!) This was another situation where the client needs and assets dictated a lot, so hopefully folks won’t judge us too harshly. Always fun to read the comments.
Dare I say that you may just get surprised by the way the votes look at this stage!?
Overall, I find the design of your site to be more pleasing. Good luck in the competition. It’s actually pretty hard to pick between all of these awesome designs from week to week, but, you’ve got my vote!
Quarterback Records gets my vote. SA Rocks is nice but the color palette is too strict with the South African flag colors. Subtle green on the side bar would be great like you did with the yellow in the category area.
In response to Trendland: your site is a really interesting implementation of Gazette – I can’t believe how different it looks and feels compared to the other two designs. However, I’m sure these guys have tons of sites to weed through, maybe you’ll get another shot at it someday. Good luck to you!
I voted for SA, and it was because of their background image. I’m on a MacBook Pro, and the other site design just looked incomplete to me because the background image didn’t fill out my screen.
Both customizations look good, but I am picking Quarterback Records by a hair. I am sure this will be another close Showdown.
Good job, Mark!
Hard to decide, both look great, so I’ll point what I didn’t like…
Quarterback: Background image too small for anyone 1280×1024 and above.
SARocks: I’d go for a 6posts index page, to match the sidebar heigth.
I think it’s going to be SARocks…
I like color scheme of SARocks more, Oye!
I don’t envy your position on choosing just two mods for the Showdown. However, the two that you selected are awesome.
I particularly love the different color schemes. Even though I ultimately voted for Quarterback Records, I didn’t like that the background was too small for me. While I didn’t vote for SARocks, I just love the header design – especially the Pos.Action and Adv. buttons to the left. Great job, guys!
Both seem a little sloppy when you down to the nitty gritty–the background and Flash rotator text issues on the QB, the overcompression of images on the SARocks side. I think the SA Rocks site does a better job of presenting information. Unfortunately, the whole concept of the flag colors for the SA Rocks theme missed me until I read comments here. QB’s idea was immediate and more visually impactful. For aesthetic achievement and clarity of concept, I pick QB.
SA Rocks !!
Indeed it does!
You really need to visit our shores some time!
haha yeah right.. I wish I could ! :/
The SARocks is very striking, but I voted for QB records as well. I’ve actually spent a lot of time looking at it this week. It was an inspiration to me of what could be done with this theme and why I chose as one of the three themes I purchased today in my Developer’s package. While the QB site isn’t radical in it’s differences, they have created a harmonious, integrated, rich feel that works well for their content.
While it’s really fun to see the customizations that really break far from the original look of a theme,I find it more useful to see a rendition of the theme that breathes character into the structure. After all a major reason we do buy these themes is because the bones are so close to what we need for our own sites.
This is really well said (imho):
I think it’s a case of taking the default theme and making it your own. And yes, the Showdown is definitely not only about being able to rip the default theme apart completely; it is also about taking what’s already great about the default theme and by adding your unique ingredients, you make it even greater (relative to your brand / identity).
I really like the SARocks modifications. Quite inspirational and reminds me not to try and change it up. The subtle use of shadow in the menu is nice.
The QB site isn’t too shabby either, but still is pretty much the standard theme, so I went with SA.
Here’s the best I have come up with for Gazette so far, but not in the showcase. http://bit.ly/15faSS
I meant, it does remind me to change it up
WOW – That’s really nice!
Added to the backlog of modifications to be added to the Showcase.
That is really nice! Chocolaty swirlishish. I wasn’t sure if I liked the background competing so much for the content, but it does add a mouth-watering richness. I suppose you’ve tried a version with a page color background?
Thanks! That really means a lot. I’m just a novice at messing with CSS and these themes are a great tool to help me learn.
I did try a page color bg but ended up liking the depth that the swirly image brought to it. I know it kinda makes everything overwhelming but I can’t help but taste chocolate when I look at it lol.
I like them both but I picked Quarterback Records for the nice blend of colors.
Quarterback wins…by a touchdown!
SA Rocks! Viruses? You guys are crazy. I just didn’t see the connection of quarterbacks and record companies which left me a bit confused. Anyways both are very nicely designed but my vote goes to SA Rocks.
I like QB Records myself. Although I really liked SA Rocks too. While I understand that QB Records may not be a huge mod, there background really drives the name and brand home for me. Good work on both.
I picked Quarterback as i don’t like SARs navigation bar. For me, it looks to old-style. QB is well designed, clearly. But there are still some tiny validation errors, aren’t?
What’s validation!?
Must admit that we don’t consider that when we feature a website in the Showdown.
SA really rocks! And they got balls, using that color scheme. They got my vote.
The other website looks awesome too, but plays it too safe – which is fine, actually.
Oh hell yeah, Mark definitely did amazingly well to use *that* colour palette… But you can see from his own blog that he loves the vibrant, bright & colourful!
Thanks for the votes everyone. Do we actually win anything? No one has contacted us so just checking…
Indeed you do…
Dropped you an e-mail just now.