Thinking out loud
So this is the design I’m supposed to imitate in the new Manakin-based repository design. Except for the Arial (ugh), it’s not bad, passing over lightly that the CSS code looks like what I might have written when I was new to the spec—that is, disorganized and messy.
But I have a design problem. Well, several. One is that I don’t have a reverse-video repository logo. That could be gotten around; I can just make one. But if I do, I may cause brand confusion between the repository and the larger organization, and I can’t think of anything calculated to cause me more grief. If I don’t, then I have the problem of trying to fit a multi-colored logo into that nice red border. Yucko.
Okay, so we get rid of the red border at the top and make it white, demarcating it with the thin red line. The nav sidebar can stay more or less as it is, white-on-red. That will also let me move the breadcrumbs into the header, which is a feature of the default Manakin design that I quite approve.
Now there’s the two-logo problem. Two logos? Yes, two logos: one for the repository, and one (optional) for the community or collection. How do you put two logos on a page such that they don’t clash? And why is the real page title living in the body of the page and not the header?
Okay, so let’s be clever about this. If there’s a logo, we put it in the logo spot in the header. If not, we use the default repository logo. Either way, proper title goes in the header. Yes! I like this. (Others may not, if they are concerned about the repository “branding” itself. Me, I’m pragmatic. The repository “brand” isn’t worth diddly-squat. Letting campus communities brand their own collections is worth a lot.)
Now to figure out how to make it happen… title shouldn’t be hard, but I’m not sure about that logo…