Australian Asexuality Website and other Aussie Visability

[SpirallingSnowy]

So!

I beleive its high time us aussies got us some visibility!!

I have the Womens Day article stuff in the works, but aussies, we need your ideas.

Seriously!

So there has been talk among us Sydneysiders about making a Aussie website for asexuality, so names for it would be awesome.

Also, and great ideas, places to send information to, people/professionals who are asexual friendly etc anyone famous that is asexual, etc etc...... Aussie AVENites... we need you!!!! Bring your ideas!!!

[HD Ready]

This is awesome news Snowy.

I think the time is right. We need to get out there and raise awareness and acceptance. I'm not proposing that we need our own community, though we do have our own little forum (located in Snowy's signature line), but I think we need to all ban together for the greater good, to help asexuality in Aust. It seems like the UK gets heaps of visibility and meets etc. we need to develop an asexual scene here in Australia.

My Proposals for the name for our site are....

Australian Asexuality Awareness - A3

AusAven

Ace'stralia

Lets get proactive guys, lets get our shit into gear and lets make 2008 the year where we start something big :)

[Skylark]

I like 'A3' as a name. AusAven would be an subset of AVEN rather than a separate site, and Ace'stralia is just tacky. But I think A3 sounds professional and catchy. It gets my vote. :)

As far as website structure goes, I would like to see a professional-looking website that focuses on the informative side. It'd be nice if it could feature some articles from an expert (though I'm skeptical about being able to find one to contribute).

A good place to start raising awareness (after developing the website, at least) would be to work on the public relations, because we'd be able to get free publicity. Contacting health or lifestyle magazines - particularly those which feature a website review section - would be one step. You could even try the health sections of popular women's magazines. Of course, we could expand on that concept and take the website to some professional blog reviewers, website reviewers and so on.

Edit: Oh, and how could I forget the newspapers? If we could get an article run by the Australian or one of the main local newspapers, that would be a big step forward. But I think that the website would be the first step, and everything should follow from there. One of my friends is interning at the Sunday Times and he might be able to help, if not actually get us a story.

[KayleeSaeihr]

I, too, like A3 though A³ would be better ;)

Beyond that I probably wouldn't be much use heh.

[KayleeSaeihr]

Ok I lied...

Maybe the logo could look something like:

[HD Ready]

I like 'A3' as a name. AusAven would be an subset of AVEN rather than a separate site, and Ace'stralia is just tacky. But I think A3 sounds professional and catchy. It gets my vote. :)

Now that I think about it Ace'stralia doesn't sound tacky, it's just EXTREMELY lame... Well one of my gifts is to come up with a million useless things so I'll see what my idle mind can conjure up tomorrow at work :P

I was actually thinking something like that A3 in that pic Galileo. A3 as in A cubed :P

[Eddie7]

Not Australian, but the A3 one (or whatever variation of that) is pretty cool.

[SpirallingSnowy]

awesome ideas!! Thanks everyone :) Skylark you have some very good PR ideas up there, and it sounds like you in my brain hehe!!

There has been interviews in Sydney Morning Herald a while ago, but i dont know if much eventuated out of it. But definately i think having an Aussie website would be a start, cos i find that Aussies are few and far between and if we have our own site, that would be a good place to start to give Aus specific information so people could see that it was legit here in Aus, and more people could have that opinion, the better :). As apposed to the ( stupid and naive) opinion that its some silly american concept they dont care about . i hate to say it, but ive seen plenty of stuff dissed over here because its a "stupid american thing". No offense guys, i personally , and i dont think anyone else here thinks like that, but thats my parents opinion on Halloween and Valentines Day for eg. * sends apologies to anyone who could possibly be offended*

[Coleslaw]

No offense guys, i personally , and i dont think anyone else here thinks like that, but thats my parents opinion on Halloween and Valentines Day for eg. * sends apologies to anyone who could possibly be offended*

I am so offended that you think getting free candy is a stupid idea. :P

Kiddin'! (But... C'mon now... Free candy!)

[SpirallingSnowy]

free candy is awesome !!! :D I actually like Halloween hehe!

But yeah. Article is in the works for womens day guys!!!

[HD Ready]

The only name I came up with today was a rework of our current name.....

Asexual Awareness Australia ;)

[kuy101]

I agree with GalileoAce, A3 (or A³ ) is great. I don't think we need to spell it out to people though. A3 is succint and can act symbolically.

[Parth]

Great ideas, everyone. I know that Elijah is not into the AVENpurple, but what other colour scheme should we go for?

[KayleeSaeihr]

A wide selection would be nice :)

[Skylark]

Great ideas, everyone. I know that Elijah is not into the AVENpurple, but what other colour scheme should we go for?

Well, the ruthless businesswoman in me says blue and white, because statistically blue is by far the most common favourite colour in surveys and thus should subconsciously make people want to keep viewing the site. ;)

But the rest of me says we should be more original than that. Personally, I like to keep things simple and elegant. Black, white and grey work nicely, as long as they're interspersed with a little colour with graphics and logos.

[Parth]

I just played around in Photoshop for a little bit and came up with two/three possible logo designs, basing it around Galileo's layout.

A very web 2.0 feel:

A more retro-chic feel (which is apparently in fashion at present)

And a variation without the "splash" (this one's my favourite):

[KayleeSaeihr]

The first one is awesome :D

[Skylark]

Ooh, GREAT colour scheme, Parth! I love the colours in the first design. It reminds me of city street-lamps at night, which I adore! I'm not so sure about all the blank grey space at the top, though. Maybe if you shrink the A3 by a third (or to the height of the black portion with a higher contrast gradient)?

Argh, this topic is making me want to go and design some logos myself. I used to do a lot of graphic design as a hobby, but I lost my software years ago and never replaced it. Drat. :(

Edit: I just noticed something! With the second design, the area where you've got the splash could just as easily hold a little blue picture of Australia instead. It's the perfect shape for it, and fits the theme more! (Though I still like the other colour scheme more.)

[Parth]

Having taken the suggestions into consideration:

^ *Likes this one*

[Parth]

So, if anyone else wants to have a go at a design, then maybe we can compile them into a poll to make the decision.

[Skylark]

It wasn't the colour I was talking about in the first design (I liked the grey and prefer the first version to the second) - it was the fact that it had lots of empty space. I think the A3 needs shrinking in height so that the gap above the rest of the title isn't there. Otherwise, it's wasted space unless you fill it up somehow. The second one looks good. :)

[HD Ready]

Logos look great Parth... I really like the second one looks like a frog's foot to me ;)

I'm amazed what you can do with photoshop, it spins me out..... I'm only handy with the hardware side of computers..... software I'm lost.

[SpirallingSnowy]

I agree Saj, im a loss with photoshop etc. Give me science and medicine and music, thats more my forte :P

So guys, any more graphics ideas?? * pokes all the aussies who havent replied yet*

[Skylark]

Shouldn't we be more concerned with getting the site set up first? It's no use having graphics and logos without a site to put them on. And this is a serious site. It should be professionally done, not set up on some DIY website-building software. I think the first step is to contact a professional web developing company. They'll have their own graphic designers that will sort all these sorts of things out for you, though they'd consult with their clients on their preferences.

[Friday]

Shouldn't we be more concerned with getting the site set up first? It's no use having graphics and logos without a site to put them on. And this is a serious site. It should be professionally done, not set up on some DIY website-building software. I think the first step is to contact a professional web developing company. They'll have their own graphic designers that will sort all these sorts of things out for you, though they'd consult with their clients on their preferences.

um.....will you be paying for this??

[Parth]

Buh... I'm a semi-professional web designer... *points to Portfolio icon in signature*

For me (at least) it's easiest to create a website AFTER the design has been developed, so that I can take a mockup and use it as a guide for the webpage. Certainly, we need plenty of content too, but I'm best at the design and development which is why I am focusing on that at this stage.

Also, Elijah is a Web Designer as well. *knocks on Elijah's profile*

[KayleeSaeihr]

I don't think we'd need to procure the aid of a professional web designer, or even a semi-professional (though such help would be welcome imagine), it's not hard to whack up a PHP based message board/forum. The only cost being the domain and hosting.

[SpirallingSnowy]

Skylark there are 2 Sydney members, Parth ( who has already pointed this out) and Elijah_aus, who are qualified web design/graphics artists etc. No need to pay a company big money if we have our own members with skills, besides, it was Elijahs idea, he verbalised it at the Sydney meet. It needs imput and stuff and if graphics is where people are discussing at the moment, that should be alright?

I totally agree it should be professionally presented which is why i want these guys to make it and not a company who doesnt understand what we need. Where else are we going to find asexual web designers? GalileoAce has offered to help, and anyone else who wants to help is more than welcome.

Its all at the ideas stage at the moment, so any imput is appreciated.

We dont have the finances to pay for a website to be designed, perhaps later on we can get it company professionally done or something, but i believe we have aussie avenites who are up to the task :)

[Skylark]

Ah, well that's a relief! I must admit, Parth did a great job with the draft logos. I still can't really see how we could work on graphics ideas without knowing the basic layout of the site first, though. It's like trying to write song lyrics when you don't have the melody in mind. But maybe that's just the way I do things.

[Parth]

*shrugs* I like to have a logo first, to set the colour scheme for the rest of the site rather than vice versa.