Website

Cosplay.com is a social site that revolves around the similar interest of cosplaying ("play" "costume"). Users take pictures of themselves in their costumes and upload them to this site. Because of the idea of this community is about everyone dressign up, I wanted to focus on the users and their photos.
NOTE: I'm not very fond of the colors, I'm thinking of maybe brightening them up.
NOTE: I'm also not sure if I should use the existing logo, or this one.
NOTE: I still want to design the search and user welcome page.

Home-1This is the landing page. It has the news and new entries. Along with that, there is a calender with all the upcoming events. As someone who is interested in anime conventions, I would love to be able to search which conventions are comming up.

Home-2
Because the calender only shows the state abbreviations, when the cursor hovers over a date, a little window pops up giving more information. The same information is given under upcoming events.

Gallery-1
Gallery has rows and rows of member's photos. I set it to be on the most popular, meaning these images are the most viewed.
NOTE: There are a couple of images of me and my roommates cosplaying ^_^

Gallery-2-User-1
Lets say I clicked the second image in the gallery, it will take me to the enlarged image along with the users profile.

Gallery-3-User-2
This is after clicking "costumes." The menu shows all of the costumes the user has posted.

Gallery-4-User-3
Clicked "Kairi." The first image appears.

Gallery-5-User-4
At the bottom of the image, a scrolling bar can be found showing the user's photos. The idea so far is for it to be flash (this is the only flash).

Final NOTE: The viewer does not have to log in or have an account to view this website.

Web Site Sketches

Note:

-www.cosplay.com

-Squares with and X= Pictures
-I don't want to force the user to log in on the Home Page. This website is open to the public, meaning you don't need to be signed in to look through the site.

Set ONE

What I like about this design is the tabs.
I want the logo to be seen no matter how far you scroll, so it has its own scrolling bar.

Set TWO

I tried to do something decorative with the logo.
This design reminds me too much of myspace on how the profile/menu is on the left side.

Set THREE

Using the tabs once again :)
I'm not sure how I feel about the background pattern. I feel like a lot of websites have already done this.

Extras

Web Design

The good:

http://www.deviantart.com/
This is one of my favorite sites. Its designed very pretty, but not only that, the search engine is amazing. The search bar on the left is so detailed, you'll definitely find what you wanted. It also has different filters such as popularity and the date entered. Users subscribe their art work.

http://www.newgrounds.com/
This is one of the coolest you'll ever visit. You can't go wrong, click anything and you'll come upon something awesome. Newgrounds is the leading website in flash animation and gaming. Users also subscribe their work. Click Flash Portal, and it lets you view the latest submissions, best of the week, and best of all time. Upon clicking a video, you can see the rating and comments before you view the video. On the left, you can find other work by the same user. It's also cool looking... lol


The bad:

http://spikedhumor.com/
Yes I know, this site is nice looking, but I still have a major problem with it. Although I love this website (it has the best and funniest videos), it has a terrible search engine and lack of filters, which makes it nearly impossible to find older videos. If you watched an enjoyable video you wish to show to a friend your only hopes of finding it is to go through each linear page going back by date.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/
Another site that I love, but I feel like its way too busy. If you have not yet guesses, I am an anime nerd (and PROUD of it). It used to be a lot more simple. The homepage would have an alphabet style search, making it easy to search titles. It took me a while to find it; http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php
^_^

http://www.angelfire.com/anime2/ols/
I know this is an angelfire page, so a fan must have done this, but all the text is CENTERED OMG! Fine, I got past that, but then searching the characters profiles I find the text centered again /sigh, and the picture is all the way to the left.