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agnidevi

Leonid Kozienko
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First off, I assume DA staff is a professional team and their decisions are based on solid data, design skills and knowledge, understanding trends and community needs. In short, they know what they do. In contrast, agnidevi is just a random dude who happens to use DA for sharing his scribbles, enjoying art and community interaction.

As I understand, DA wants ‘to bring back the big fish’ – professionals, content creators, influencers by providing an appealing modern look and feel, easy to use UI and awesome features. These are good and reasonable intentions. And who the heck would oppose that?

So let’s see how it works out.

New Profile page:


Eclipse Profile by agnidevi

Right off the bat you’ve got a sense of temp layout or comp, i.e. something you do to check things out. That big white space on top is reserved for splash art (see ArtStation) and stays on top of every page. That’s cool, but I may not upload anything at all. And there is no way to collapse or hide this empty space. LinkedIn did a better job with an optional background that doesn't affect the layout.


Another thing you see is how uneven the space usage is. We have two similar image stripes, two watchers / watching stripes (where are the visitors btw?) and collections stripe at the bottom. You can add / delete more stripes just like the widgets. With flexible width this will work both on widescreen and small
displays. However on big displays the watchers / watching tabs are stretched all over leaving too much empty space. Maybe add more deviant icons and/or compress the tab?

The text blocks on the right are totally out of place. It may work as a standalone feed on mobile, but on desktop it don't belong to page layout. Also with pagination gone the comments section would take a lot of vertical space, leaving you with big blank space on the left. Again, the feed concept (Twitter, Facebook etc.) works fine on mobile screen but on desktop it's wasting space and
nullifying layout design.

Comparing to Eclipse, Classic layout is much tidier and using space more effectively:

Classic Frontpage by agnidevi

There is an art section on the left and text widgets on the right. You can instantly see poll results, status updates and journals content, including comments. Since I don't use any custom coding, my page may look a little bland to someone who likes to personalize and decorate their profiles. I heard the Eclipse doesn't support custom coding, so...

New Gallery layout:

Eclipse Gallery by agnidevi

New Favourites section:

Eclipse Favs by agnidevi

The space usage is much better if you don’t mind image wall and infinite scrolling. There is no pagination and new images are loading up automatically. The only issue here is RAM usage and navigation. And with many images in your collection it would take forever to reach the comments
section that sits down below.

New Posts section:

Eclipse Posts by agnidevi

Place for your
journals, status updates and polls. Nothing fancy here - it just works, but you can no longer see the poll results or comments without clicking.

Let’s check some random journal:

Eclipse Journal 01 by agnidevi

Wow. A truly minimalist Steve Jobs style! To see the actual content you need to scroll down:

Eclipse Journal 02 by agnidevi

Wait... there is it? I see some mongol dude video and nice comments section below (why there are two input fields btw?), but there is my text? See that tiny string on top? That's it. Jokes aside, the comments section looks great for mobile feed, but the actual content is lost. Perhaps you should stay on Twitter for sharing such small bits?

Next, let's check the poll section:

Eclipse Poll by agnidevi

Looks nice with all the content lining up. Perfect for mobile.

New Stats & Insights:

Eclipse Stats by agnidevi

Personally I love it (especially the numbers... +57 watchers last month!), though the layout is just screaming for effective page usage. Why not to adapt the dashboard style layout, similar to website or network
monitoring software? Let me customize and arrange these boxes, so I could see everything at once the way I want.

Also note, about 80% of profile traffic are coming from desktop.

New Notifications center:

Eclipse Notifications by agnidevi

As a creator you spend most of your time inside the 'command center'. The meat and bones of your profile. And there Eclipse stuck me the most. All the info you need is now hidden in various places. Things are jiggled here and there. Sure, I'll get used to it someday, but why can't you do the similar stuff you did in Stats & Insights?

Again, let me
customize and build the dashboard the way I want, with the things I like. You're saying it's too complicated for new and inexperienced users? Fine, then why not to introduce pre-build 'themes' for those who didn't like to fiddle with stuff? And let us, more advanced or experienced users, decide how to interact with content.

If you look at software like Photoshop, Maya, Modo etc. almost every package allows you to modify the UI the way you want.

In contrast, the Classic version is simple and has everything I need in one place:

Classic Center by agnidevi

To sum things up, the Eclipse is just not yet ready. At least not for desktop.

According to my poll (I know it's only a tiny fraction), almost 50% tried Eclipse and switched back. Are they dumb and old fashioned or maybe they just aren't happy with the new experience?

While trying to find your place amongst the other social media, you may kill your identity and uniqueness. I doubt we need another eclectic mix of
ArtStation, Twitter or Instagram. And pushing people to live in a half finished house is not a very good idea.

You can do so much by bringing artists, writers, craftsmen, musicians, game developers etc. under one roof or you can shoo them away.
What will be your choice?
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I know everybody has different preferences, but I'd like to share some things I've stumbled upon recently. ;)

「Shine」theme song performed by Leo Ieiri (家入レオ) from Fuji TV drama "The Frog Princess" (カエルの王女さま) aired in 2012:



In contrast,「Prover」by milet have a different vibe with great vocals and performance (and fits pretty well as Babylonia's ED Theme):



Though I'm not a big fan of Russian covers, this K/DA - POP/STARS cover by Sati Akura nail it perfectly:


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Well, can you imagine hearing this in Star Wars universe? Awesome mix of throat singing and rock music performed by Mongolian band The Hu.


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Got a message from Sony Pictures Animation and I thought that some of you may be interested!

The Boondocks team looking for the following artists (full time or freelance):
  • Background Designer
  • Background Painter - Environment Artist
  • Prop Designer
  • Story Artist
  • Graphic Designer (Logos and Type to be used in the Animated Show)
The detailed requirements for some of these positions could be found here and there. The style for Boondocks is Realistic with a strong Anime bent to it.

You can apply via website or contact Tiffany Herrington (therrington@spanimation.com), who is a recruiter at SPA working with Seung Kim and Charles Lee.
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Every time I see new deviants, I wonder why do you guys join Deviantart?

And why watch (or follow) inactive or semi active accounts?

Many artists used DA as springboard for their success/popularity and never look back. Years ago the community was thriving and you could learn and grow, get inspired, meet new friends or simply have fun hanging around. But these days people are elsewhere like twitch, youtube, instagram, twitter etc. That makes me really wonder what kind of value DA brings to you?
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Featured

Eclipse vs Classic by agnidevi, journal

Shine | Prover music video by agnidevi, journal

Sugaan Essena - The Hu Music Video by agnidevi, journal

Boondocks Animated TV Show seeks Artists by agnidevi, journal

Question for fellow deviants by agnidevi, journal