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Show HN: Pantastic

pantastic.co

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Re: Show HN: Pantastic

#51

Post by alphakappa »

callmeed wrote: post #12

Hey, great work. We're adding panoramas at http://cheergram.com very soon. I like the niche printing business and I think there's definitely demand. 3 Things: My biggest issue with the site is that you don't show the final product anywhere. It should really be the hero of your home page (where that little dude with the chalkboard is). Even if you don't have one printed yet, make a fake print+frame in Photoshop (not h…

On Pantastic, I can click on 'Pay Now' without filling out any of my contact information, or uploading an image. You (Pantastic) may want to validate all that before sending the user to the payment page to avoid headaches later on.

Re: Show HN: Pantastic

#52

Post by ruswick »

The actual page has several conspicuous issues. First, the typeface is consistently too thin. You really ought to be using more robust type weights. Second, there are too many textures that are too profligate. They distract from the actual content and the variations in texture from block to block create a somewhat grating reading experience. Moreover, the texture feels sort of perfunctory: it seems as though you just pulled five gaudy textures from Subtle Patterns.

The actual idea is novel, but I'm not sure how large the demand will be: panorama software (especially on mobile phones) tends to be inconsistant and produces rendering errors, and most everything my iPhone produces isn't fit for large-format display. Moreover, the price is somewhat high. I acknowledge that printing large images is expensive, but this is a non-essential service and is somewhat of a gimmick. It will be hard to convince prospective customers to drop $25 on something like this.

However, the idea is novel and the name is great.

Re: Show HN: Pantastic

#53

Post by Vindexus »

The "What is Pantastic?" section doesn't really answer the question. Those three points could be applied to almost any decorative item sold online; they don't tell me that you print panoramas that I upload.

I'd also really like some pictures of the finished product.

Re: Show HN: Pantastic

#54

Post by tsieling »

Congratulations. The photo of your physical printing space is a big plus, it shows that you're for real. You could look for ways to highlight that more, and have real people with the final printed product to show its scale and quality.

Re: Show HN: Pantastic

#55

Post by epa »

Interesting concept, unfortunate design.. Sorry. In this day and age of web design, you need to be at a different level than this.

Re: Show HN: Pantastic

#57

Post by munger »

michaelmior wrote: post #11

Looks great! One thing I did notice is the background image ( http://www.pantastic.co/ggb.png ) loads really slow for me and the design feels a little broken without it. Overall love the look though :)

Nice looking site overall.

As others have mentioned - image optimization will help you a lot. Taking a look at firebug Net profiling, the homepage footprint weighs in at 2MB. 500K is your "studio" image, followed by the bridge bg photo at 370K.

So just optimizing these 2 images will reduce your bandwidth by around 660K or 33%. I'm guessing you can do both in 210K (150K bridge, 60K studio = 210K) possibly better.

EDIT: decided to actually fix it instead of just talking about it.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/6653594/pantastic-there-i-fixed-it....

studio.jpg photoshop jpg 70 quality ggb.jpg photoshop jpg 80 quality

old: 494k + 369k = 863k new: 64k + 1k + 70k = 135k

savings = 728K or 36% of your total homepage footprint.

Save more by splitting all your polaroid shadows to png, and the photos to jpg 60-80 quality.

Requires html/css change to layout studio image as 2 images stacked on top (separate shadow png)

Re: Show HN: Pantastic

#59

Post by ruswick »

whatshisface wrote: post #58
epa wrote: post #55

Interesting concept, unfortunate design.. Sorry. In this day and age of web design, you need to be at a different level than this.

Yes, if only craigslist had better design, then maybe people would use it...

Craigslist's elegance exists in it's utter simplicity. This site does not attempt to be visually simple; it intends to be conspicuous and eye-catching, and does so in a way that might come off as annoying or excessive.

Re: Show HN: Pantastic

#60

Post by hnriot »

epa wrote: post #55

Interesting concept, unfortunate design.. Sorry. In this day and age of web design, you need to be at a different level than this.

Really that's it? You just say it sucks but can't offer anything substantive or actionable or even remotely helpful?
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