Past Site Layouts & Unused Concepts

[Sonic 296]

Going back through all my backups and using the Internet Wayback Machine I have put together a small gallery of past CNCNZ.com layouts. I've also included some unused concepts and designs.

 

This is from October 1999, in the early days as TiberianSun.Net.NZ (TSNNZ). The design is simple but even after all these years I still like the main logo at the top. Did you know that background is featured in the random rotation in the current layout?

 

This layout is the very first CNCNZ.com design, from early 2000 I think. Again this is simple design but it seemed to work well with a clever curves. Notice the blue style. The logo at the top was created by a complete fluke. I can't recall where the curved images around the CNCNZ text came from, perhaps there were clip art from somewhere.

 

Here we have an early concept layout from January 2001. It was never used and reworked about 3 times before becoming final. Unfortunately I don't have any screen shots of the final version that looked better that this. Look at the font in the logo!!! What the hell was I thinking!

 

This layout from about November 2002 was one I always liked. The blue was swapped out in favour of grey mixed with gold. This layout also used a drop down menu system. This is the design that also started a small war with C&C Universe. Apparently I stole the design. As this quote from our history page explains...

The only major problem we had in 2002 was a small war with another C&C site. I won't name names here but it was basically an argument over the grey/silver/gold layout I had created from scratch over the period of 3 weeks. When this new C&C site opened it's doors claiming it would "change" the community and do things different to every other C&C site in the community, one of the owners of this site claimed that I stole the concept for their layout and the placement of it's menus and navigation bars. You see since the grey/silver/gold layout used a drop down menu system across the top of the page there was no need for a left hand navigation bar. Only a right hand feature bar. Well this other C&C site had a similar layout, I agreed with them on that point, but having never seen this new site before I failed to bridge the connection of how I had stolen their layout. In the end I basically ignored anything that this site did and that was the end of it for me. Apart from some of our forum regulars here making their way to this other C&C site's forums and leaving some nasty comments. They fired back and that was that. And through of all this many sites "shared" the same basic layout anyway, they still do to this very day.

 

Fast forward to July 2003 and it was back to blue again. From memory I started this layout in about February 2003 but got bored working it and left it for a while, eventually getting back to finishing it later in the year.

 

Ah yes the purple monster from late 2004 through 2005 and 2006. Actually everyone liked these colours, I did to. Blue gave way to purple, black and gold. This was the first design to use the rotating random logos idea. You will also notice the coloured coded game nav bar at the top. An idea that is still alive today.

 

CNCNZ.com gets Remixed. Not bad for a rushed job. A rushed job because in late April last year I decided to brighten things up with the layout. I also decided to change things up by doing things different, firstly I came up with this skyblue/black/white layout that featured a drop down menu system, the features bar on the left rather than the right. The reaction once the layout went live was not so good, the colours were to bright was the main complaint. And the more I worked with it I grew to hate it as well. So I worked all day and all night until 6 AM the next day redoing it all. This led to Remix v2.0, what you see in the screen shot, not shown it the drop down menu system. And the good thing not many people got see the crap skyblue/black/white layout

 

CNCNZ.com V8.0 from late 2006 through to August 2007, the rise of the red. Because Nod is cool and it was so cool to be bad, for time ever we went red. My joke at the time was that Kane put a gun to my head and demanded a Nod red CNCNZ.com layout otherwise I would be joining Seth Anyway, I liked V8, it came together nicely, looked sharp but most importantly it was back to more traditional design, no fancy menu system either. This was the first design to have our news update moved to our forums.

 

Unused Concepts

 

This is from 2000, was meant to replace the first blue curve layout. It was actually in use for about 24 hours but was pulled down because of a problem. It crashed IE browsers! I think it had some issues with Netscape browsers as well. I was not the designer for this layout either.

 

Not many people have seen this layout. I've never publicly revealed it until now. I forget when this one came about. Some one e-mailed me out of the blue saying he could redesign the site at no cost to me, all I had to was display his logo at the bottom of the page. I guess he was some sort of web-designer trying to build a portfolio. At the time I liked what I saw, I requested a few changes but the guy never replied back to me so the idea was dropped and forgotten about.

 

I hope you have enjoyed this trip down memory lane. I wish I had done a better job of saving copies of the sites layouts over the years so I wouldn't have to hunt through old back ups for them.

[JahSpoR 0]

Some nice jobs you've done there Sonic,

Haven't known CNCNZ before 2003, becouse I was over at TiberiumSun.com,

But sadly they failed to keep up with the other communities.

 

Although theres way more action here

[TheBlackOut 7]

Ahh, this was when I first came here! It's actually what made me sign up here instead of other places. I liked the den but this layout made CNCNZ more appealing to me.

 

http://img377.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dec05ak2.jpg

 

[Azrael 0]

I remember the 2004 layout... Very nice, it was one of the factors that made me join... If I could suggest... Why not, for 1 month, the month of the 10th anniversary, make ALL the layouts, v.1 - v.8, available for use?

[JahSpoR 0]

The massive list of members also where attricting me