Technovangelism

I have always wanted to be a graphic designer. For as long as I have been writing software, I have wanted my software not just to function well, but to be really ridiculously good looking at the same time. I have had a few chances to practice my design skills on several projects, but it is never enough. So in an effort to improve my graphic design skills, I will be attempting to do a design for a home page (more on this later) once a day for the next five days starting tomorrow.

My plan is to mock up the page in Photoshop in fairly high detail. I want it to be a close reproduction of what the final page will look like. Each day when I post the new mockup, I will post my thoughts on the design, as well as inspirations for it and anything else that contributed to that specific design. I will be doing my best each day to completely forget what I did the day before as I want each design to be unique and above all else, pretty.

The page I will be mocking up is the logged-in home page for a forum site I built in Rails over a year ago. I have grown tired of the design and would like to see what else I can come up with. Some important features of the current home page that I need to include in every design are the the list of unread threads and a calendar/upcoming events widget. Other less, but I would still like them on there, important features are a list of awards for members of the site, a list of links for sub-navigation, and a list of the users who are currently logged in.

Those are my only functional requirements. The main colors of the site are maroon and gold, so I will be incorporating those where possible, but I am not bound to them. All other design choices are up in the air, and I will do my best to cover several different layouts and styles.