All the latest news and announcements, straight from the WooThemes HQ!
Showdown Series (Season One): Week 8
31. Aug, 2009 by Adii Rockstar in Interactive
In recent weeks we’ve been making it a habit to feature modifications that were done by designers in the Showdown… Why? Because at WooHQ, we totally value awesome design! And this week doesn’t look like it’s gonna be any different…
(Also view the NEW Showdown for Week 9!)
Aperture may still be a relatively new theme around here (at least in comparison to old school favourites like Fresh News, Gazette & VibrantCMS), but it’s fast becoming one of our most popular themes. So up for today’s contest is Sean O’Brien’s AUS120.com & Chan Min Maung’s Phoe Chan. So let’s see whether they’ve done Aperture justice with their awesome modifications (you get to decide of course)…
We’ll review Phoe Chan first, since Sean is an Affiliated Woo Worker as well…
Phoe Chan – Link
Phoe Chan
Not a fan of purple? Get used to it, because Phoe Chan is awesome in all it’s purple glory. It may not be everyone’s favourite colour, but Chan Min Maung has definitely executed his modification of Aperture beautifully! The slightly “galactic” background and glossy feel in the header really gives the design a very swish look, whilst creating a sense of what the branding of Phoe Chan is all about.
Homepage up next… We absolutely love the customized slider that has replaced Aperture’s default one. It just has “awesome” written all over it and it definitely sets a high quality tone for the rest of the design. And as is always the case with such homepage features – it’s important to execute this well, because it’s essentially your first message to visitors of our site. So in this regard – Phoe Chan definitely has the goods!
Clicking to the inner pages is slightly less wow than the homepage, due to a bit of a lack in modification work. BUT Aperture was designed to work out of the box and Chan Min Maung has obviously just packaged the contents of that box in a completely new box. So whilst the modifications aren’t as extensive as some other Showdowns, nobody can fault Phoe Chan, because it looks and works amazingly well.
We also like the fact that Phoe Chan uses Aperture as a design portfolio instead of a photoblog, which it is probably best suited to out-of-box. Looking specifically at Chan Min’s portfolio, you get the sense that he has fully utilized the default functionality into Aperture.
Most definitely a top notch job in our opinion! 
AUS120 – Link
AUS120
Phew… It’s hard not to wax lyrical about Sean’s work, because he most definitely has an eye for design, even though he only recently started to teach himself how to design / code (which just makes AUS120 so much more impressive).
Looking at the AUS120 homepage, you’ll see that Sean has done quite a bit of modification work on the homepage layout itself and even developed a custom “Latest News” widget. We’re also big fans of the light-on-dark, black and red styling & branding of the website as a whole. This colour palette obviously lends itself to the vivid photography that has been used throughout the site, as it most definitely stands out from the rest of the content.
When browsing around the AUS120 site, one also gets the feeling that Sean has paid a lot of attention to the minor details; especially with regards to hovers and transitions, which has been totally customized to fit his brand and his modification of Aperture.
It’s also nice to see that all of the inner pages sports this customized look; instead of relying on the default style of the out-of-box Aperture. This along with the attention to detail, just enhances the overall experience of browsing around the website.
Awesome job Sean and even more awesome to know that we have such talented Affiliated Woo Workers!
So what are you waiting for? Don’t you think we’ve said enough about these two awesome modifications already? Now it’s your time to vote, comment & ultimately decide the fate of this week’s contestants… Go, go gadgetboy!
WINNER! So congrats to Sean O’Brien for winning the penultimate Showdown in the first season with a whopping 72%. Your WooTee is on its way all the way to Australia and we wouldn’t mind having you model it for us… Congrats again!
Congrats again!46 Responses to “Showdown Series (Season One): Week 8”
31 August 2009 at 6:53 am #
The AUS120 site is very well done. Both sites are excellent, actually. I prefer the AUS120 site layout, though. Nice work to both developers!
31 August 2009 at 7:51 am #
i must say this week purple is the color to love! Phoe chan has my vote!
31 August 2009 at 8:57 am #
Wow! Talk about a tough choice this week. Both are really awesome. It practically came to a coin toss which I picked. First I was amazed at Phoe Chan’s customization of Aperture. Completely different feel. Amazing is right. Bold color choice too.
I chose the AUS120 site as I just really have a weak spot for graphic, magazine style sites. I also thought it was very well put together. Very tight. As an aside, I was also amazed that Sean does so much. Professional Windsurfer AND designer / coder?
Nice selections! Kudos to both designers.
31 August 2009 at 9:07 am #
We love to hear that we’ve made the choice a little bit difficult for you!
That’s just how we roll around here…
6 September 2009 at 10:33 am #
Yeap, no idea where I find the time for everything! haha. Red bull full power! Thanks for the vote
31 August 2009 at 9:27 am #
I went with Aus120 as well because I think his customizations fit his content very well. Love the latest news widget, too. Tough choice though!
Love the Showdown, by the way. I’m preparing to do a round of modifications on the Busy Bee theme I’m using and this has been a great source of inspiration!
31 August 2009 at 12:06 pm #
AUS120 = http://demo.gavickpro.serwery.pl/joomla15/may2009/ (A joomla template)
31 August 2009 at 12:20 pm #
Tough one, Adii but I’ll have to go with Aus120. It was one of those by-a-whisker ones.
PhoeChan, Amazing stuff though. Made it so hard for me to pick :/
31 August 2009 at 12:55 pm #
strange, purple is definitely not one of my favorite colors but Phoe’s design is absolutely beautifull and he gets my vote.
31 August 2009 at 1:38 pm #
Hey, check the bottom of /sponsorship/opportunities/ on AUS120 … commenting issue, looks like.
This one was really hard for me. I really like the outer design of AUS120 but the light text on dark background is a huge pet peeve of mine … and then Phoe Chan did it on some of his pages too. I do like the purple and the fun slider on Phoe Chan, but ultimately I think AUS120 really captured the spirit of the content. So I guess AUS120 wins on marketing power, ha.
6 September 2009 at 10:39 am #
Eeek! Forgot to close a on that page. Well spotted!
Re ‘light text on dark background’ I get a lot of comments from people who don’t like that, you’re not the only one. I really do, so it was hard to go away from it, because on the frontpage I went for graphics mostly, but the inside pages are all dark text on white as that’s where most of the reading is done …
8 September 2009 at 12:35 pm #
It’s weird because it seems to affect some people and not others … for me, I get a visual ghosting thing going on around the white letters on the black background, and I can still see them sort of burned into my vision when I click away from the site.
31 August 2009 at 2:25 pm #
I really like Aus120. Both of these are nice mods, but the Aus120 did it for me more.
1 September 2009 at 4:31 am #
Now this is a tough one !!
Phoe Chan’s Website looks so colorful, beautiful yet clean. Aus120 has done great customizations but don’t impressive usage of colors (atleast for me) and looks very cluttered and messy. Though, not to forget. Customizations are really great. But I’ll vote for Phoe Chan at the end !
1 September 2009 at 4:57 am #
@ Herohym – I helped design that template (mostly the graphics part), so I guess I’m allowed to steal some things from it. Plus its GPL anyhow … I just used the background and the colour scheme mostly. Joomla is really different to work with in terms of setting up widgets etc … I much prefer Wordpress
1 September 2009 at 5:41 am #
It’s your design; so why not use it!
Thanks for clearing that up!
2 September 2009 at 1:39 pm #
I wouldn’t call it “stealing” … more like “saving some time” and “reusing things that I liked about a previous design”. Who doesn’t do it? ha
And UGH I hate working with Joomla.
3 September 2009 at 5:20 pm #
Yeah, I find Joomla extremely clumsy. But for bigger corporate/business websites, I have a hard time convincing clients I can do everything Joomla does with WP (only much quicker/easier!), especially if they are currently using and used to Joomla … old habits die hard I guess.
1 September 2009 at 10:38 am #
Both designs look nice but AUS120 gets the vote.
2 September 2009 at 11:37 am #
AUS120 gets my vote. Both are nice, but the boldness of Sean O’Brien’s design wins out over Phoe Chan’s in my book.
7 September 2009 at 1:17 pm #
AUS120 takes it by a whisker for me!
7 September 2009 at 1:21 pm #
Hey,
I hate to be a stickler for showdown rules but I’d have to vote for Phoe Chans site. Not that the AUS120 isn’t a nice site, it’s just that it’s actually a pretty un-modified Gavick template based on the joomla modules. Check it here:
http://demo.gavickpro.serwery.pl/joomla15/may2009/
I do really like how he ported it over to the wordpress engine so AUS120’s technical skills are superior in my book.
Good work by all but my vote’s for the guy that used the aperture template as a base.
7 September 2009 at 1:34 pm #
If you see this comment by Sean O’Brien (who designed AUS120), you’ll see that he actually designed that Joomla template
–> http://www.woothemes.com/2009/08/showdown-series-season-one-week-8/#comment-24457
7 September 2009 at 1:21 pm #
Whoa! They are both soooo good. I’m torn. I love the colors on the Phoe, but there seems to be more modifications on the AUS. I think I am going to pick Phoe though.
7 September 2009 at 1:24 pm #
in every woothemes are MISSING one FUNDAMENTAL key elements:
the email subscribe form on the top
7 September 2009 at 1:32 pm #
Do you think that users prefer to sign up to an e-mail newsletter, instead of subscribing to RSS?
7 September 2009 at 1:58 pm #
there’s a problem with the RSS, not everybody use them, and it gives you the opportunity to do some cool email marketing.
Especially if you want ot monetize your blog with REAL cash.
i make around 10.000 usd a month with my blog, if I’m telling you this, it’s because it’s true!
but this is not the end…
if you especially collect also birthdates, with emails, you can understand so many things about your readership (and re-sell such infos in order to give advertisers the opportunity to know the people they’re going to reach)
with the RSS you can’t send some emails, just to say hello to your subscribers or to tell them to buy some cool stuff.
It could be very nice to have a plugin that gives you the opportunity to collect the same email address for the newsletter, and for the RSS.
I’m looking for a solution in order to create a blog with monthly billing, do u have anything to suggest me?
I like a lot your membership management software…
7 September 2009 at 2:41 pm #
Yes, your email list is crucial for monetizing your site. If this is your goal though, you will be using a service like Aweber. Aweber will allow you to create a form that you can then save as either html or a java script, then you paste that into a sidebar text widget. You can even put an image behind it and style your text. Aweber has a tut for doing that.
7 September 2009 at 1:52 pm #
AUS 120s is woooow. Even when he used styles and element from the JOOMLA template, but he fixed it in wp. Congrats
I would love to have this newsticker – great! Really nice done.
Respect
7 September 2009 at 1:54 pm #
I absolutely loved the Phoe Chan’s mod, and would actually be willing to buy a copy of that as it is, but its probably not available for purchase, but damn, he has done a good job.
And i LOVE the purple.
7 September 2009 at 2:13 pm #
Although the Pheo Chan is a very nice design and I like those portfolio designs, I love the AUS120 the most.
My vote goes to AUS120.
7 September 2009 at 2:15 pm #
I’m a fan of AUS120. Great Job!!!
7 September 2009 at 2:45 pm #
They both have horizontal scrollbars at 1024 width. That’s just plain sloppy.
10 September 2009 at 2:27 am #
I’ve never tested at that resolution as it makes up 1.41% of my visitors …
… but nearly all the WooThemes are built on the 960 grid (including Aperture), so wouldn’t all the themes have a scrollbar at 1024×768 ???
7 September 2009 at 4:14 pm #
AUS120 is great!! “Full of Win”!!
7 September 2009 at 9:15 pm #
Good Heavens!
What exactly is it that seems to posses most of the internet-technocrats as of late?
A website with a DARK-COLOR background is hard on the eyes.
Case in point, I happen to have an active list of exactly 8174
clients, age bracket 35 to 78. In a survey carried out June 2009,
93% do NOT like dark-color backgrounded websites, they hit the back button instantly at such an encounter, precisely because such a site is hard on the eyes.
While I do admire the tech part of the candidates sites, it is a demonstrable fact that in my neck of the woods part of internet-marketing, both sites fall far too short of the capability to deliver. Even copywriters would concur that legibility of a site is indeed mission-critical. so to speak.
Please, technocrats at Woo-themes, you can do a whole lot better.
Thank you,
Iam pat.
10 September 2009 at 2:31 am #
Hi Pat,
I agree with you there. Which is why I made sure on my site that ONLY the frontpage is light text on dark background. The frontpage is supposed to showcase the images and graphics a bit more …
That being said, its also important as a designer to be in touch with who your audience is and design with them in mind. I can fairly confidently say that +80% of my audience in the windsurfing world would be well under 35 yo. In fact, most of the emails I get are from 12-20 yo’s. I think the younger techno bracket actually like the dark sites with light text?
10 September 2009 at 4:26 am #
I think the light text on black can be effective in small doses, so I think that it does work to do it on the front page and not on in-depth articles
You’re right that your audience would have an easier time reading the text, and maybe you’re right that they might appreciate an edgier design, so very good points.
I’ve just never liked too much black background any way – even when I was a young punkette. Perhaps an art school hold over where everything is matted in white museum board.
I like your site just fine though. I didn’t feel like it over-used the black.
7 September 2009 at 10:05 pm #
First of all let me say I love both of the sites featured in the showdown. I however have to cast me vote for the AUS120 site for several reasons.
#1 the color scheme of the site is awesome. Lets face it you really cant ever get enough of black, white, and red. AUS120 takes advantage of this look and really does a great job with the presentation.
#2 The overall look and arrangement of the site is very nice. It has a lot going on but isn’t crowded and confusing.
#3 And I know its irrelevant but I was born on the water and I spend every available moment on the river albeit now I live in the Arizona desert!
Congratulations to both contestants! the sites look great!
7 September 2009 at 10:32 pm #
Shoot!!!
forget about “AUS120″, He is copying from GavickPro Joomla Theme. Even the background picture is 100% same and all the CSS and other images are too. only logo is difference.
Sean, shame on you man.
p.s. If Sean is the template creator of GavickPro “ICKI Sports”, I apologizes deeply.
Zeyar
7 September 2009 at 10:32 pm #
Shoot!!!
forget about “AUS120″, He is copying from GavickPro Joomla Theme. Even the background picture is 100% same and all the CSS and other images are too. only logo is difference.
Sean, shame on you man.
http://demo.gavickpro.serwery.pl/joomla15/may2009/
p.s. If Sean is the template creator of GavickPro “ICKI Sports”, I apologizes deeply.
Zeyar
7 September 2009 at 11:00 pm #
Oops! GPL, Timesaving ..
I got it!
Sorry for my above comments.
8 September 2009 at 1:12 am #
I love the phoe’s one.. no doubt
8 September 2009 at 4:55 am #
My vote for AUS this is awosome
8 September 2009 at 7:20 am #
I agree with everyone else, this was a tough choice, but I’m going to go with Phoechan.com
And the deciding factor was the layout of his portfolio.
Both use the same theme, but the content isn’t quite comparing apples to apples, so that made it that much more difficult. But still, something about Phoe’s design and portfolio layout did it for me.
8 September 2009 at 8:13 am #
I vote Phoe Chan.
I think it is “Very Nice theme”.So…..