Paying Attention To The Details
Men’s SS13 Fashion Trend: Statement Tailoring
Men’s Sunglasses & Face Shapes Guide
Men's Short Hairstyles
Men's Mid-length Hairstyles
Men's Long Hairstyles
Men's Curly Hairstyles
Men's Black & Afro Hairstyles
Celebrity Hairstyles
New Year, New Plans
Hey guys, been a while since I have written an article for the site, but the reason for my hiatus is that I have been quietly trying to give the site a bit of a redesign and add some amazing new features for you all. I have probably completed about 50% of the new site and so I thought to myself, “why don’t I run my ideas past the most important people… the readers!” before I go off and create everything that is important to me, but might not be so important to you.
So today I am looking for FEEDBACK. Any ideas for new features, topics, design changes or even criticisms are welcomed and hopefully it should enable me to put together a great plan of action for exactly how the new site should operate in order to please the majority. I can’t pretend like every suggestion will be implemented, but they will definitely be considered and if I have the technical capabilities then they may just be included.
PLEASE LEAVE ALL SUGGESTIONS/WISH LISTS IN THE COMMENTS BELOW.
New Features
So it makes no sense just asking what you want without showing you my vision for the site and the new features I would like to implement. So without further ado, this is the preliminary list of features due to be included in the site:
- A Forum - Yes I have wanted one of these for a long time now and hopefully it will prove worthwhile if we can get a community together helping each other out and discussing fashion and style. I have already purchased the forum software for this and am now looking to redesign the existing template in order to have it looking like the main Fashionbeans site.
- Street Style Photographs - Another section which is a natural evolution for a fashion magazine, street style photographs can often be great sources of inspiration when it comes to putting together a new outfit or seeing how your existing pieces can be worked into a new look. I am currently on the look out for interested photographers who would like to contribute these photos regularly (IS THIS YOU? Get in touch if it is), as well as hoping to collaborate with some of the major independent street style blogs on the internet to have their work submitted in order to form a coalition or collaborative effort.
- Fashion/Style/Lifestyle News - We often get inundated with press releases, new collection launches, limited editions etc. which just don’t contain enough information in order to create a full blown article out of them. We are looking to now launch a news section alongside our feature articles which will be updated more regularly (2-3 posts a day) showcasing all the latest collections, look books, store openings, limited editions and the like so you are bang up to date every day.
- More Interaction - The comments section on each article has been completely redone so that you can now reply to individual comments and form a thread underneath, making the conversation easier to follow and allowing individuals to have their questions answered in a logical format. We are also introducing gravatars which is a completely free way of using your email address you usually comment with to put an image of yourself next to your comments. This means we can put faces to the names of our regular readers/writers and encourage more of a community feel. You can get your COMPLETELY FREE gravatar at http://en.gravatar.com/ in preparation and also see how the whole concept works. Along the same lines, we are going to allow readers to subscribe (and manage subscriptions) to articles when they comment so they can get an email notification every time a new comment is added to the story if they wish.
- Voucher Codes Section - This has been a pet peeve of mine since I launched the section. It doesn’t get regularly updated at the moment due to the way that it works. However I am now taking inspiration from the larger voucher code websites and completely redesigning it back and front in order to make it a sustainable part of the site which will actually prove of use to all our readers. We often get exclusive voucher codes offered to us but do not take them up due to the workload it takes to list them and keep them up to date right now.
- Galleries - I am hoping to find a way of including a gallery section on the site – similar to how the street style section would work – but for subject areas like men’s hairstyles, facial hair styles etc. These could be regularly updated and provide inspiration for men when it comes to changing their personal look beyond clothing.
- More Fashionbeans Writer Interaction - All the team here will be given their own biographies with more personal information included, galleries, twitter feeds and ways to contact them direct with your dilemmas. We will also all have our own gravatar and comments shown in a different colour so you can interact with the whole team personally a lot more.
- Ask a question - This might be more suited to the new forum but the option to ask a question via a contact form and have your question answered by either a fashionbeans member of staff or the readers is something I would love to have implemented. It would work a lot like the GQ style shrink whereby we answer a percentage of the questions each month but then let the readers help each other out for the other percentage of queries.
Suggestions
Honestly I would love to hear your personal suggestions about what you want to see implemented, and any comments or queries about the above. I will be heavily involved in checking this article regularly and responding direct to you all so please just drop us a line below.
FINALLY… I would like to say thank you to all our readers and staff who have made this site what it is today after starting out as a simple personal blog back in 2007. We are going to go to the next level now with all these new features, and we hope to become the destination for all things fashion and style.
Regards,
Ben
Founder & Editor-In-Chief
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I really love the idea of an inspiration gallery section for when you feel like you have nothing to wear, somewhere you can take a quick look and see another way to wear your favourite jumper. I look forward to it.
Maybe prices on pictures that you publish, that way we can tell immediately if it’s in our budget as some stuff looks out of budge but isn’t!
And one more thing, as I’m a redhead, I’d like there to be at least one article on this site style, haircuts for guys etc. as the majority of the time, the colours that the darker haired guys wear does not suit me!
So great to hear that)
Forums and personal registration (personal profiles) will be just great!
cheers from cold Russia:)
sounds great!
what i have to say is:
i’d love to see a new design, maybe not a new layout because it would be confusing but maybe some design changes?
what i also wanna say is that i’m pretty confused with the categories.
men’s style, men’s fashion basics, clothing collections, men’s fashion trends, men’s look books and men’s high fashion..
whatever, i really love fashionbeans and i read almost every article!
and i’m only 14 years old haha :D
cheers from vienna, austria
Love the sound of all these updates! ?
I think that others suggestion of a competition sounds great. Where people post their looks and then the fashionbeans writers or maybe the readers could vote on their favourite. However I think there would have to be a prize for the winner like a gift card for instance.
sounds wicked can not wait i am new here and still finding out my way round but i was thinking maybe see if u can get an iphone app it be really handy i bookmarked ur page on the iphone but it be kl if you cod do an app if not its kl love the ideas n can not wait and maybe let people sign and have fav articles but agin up to u n do not change things too much
JDT
P.S
cuz i wod love the site even if it stayed the same
Really like the direction you guys are taking the site. Would perhaps like a few more articles tailored to 30 somethings as a lot of the lookbook stuff is generally for the younger guys!!
A lot of articles have mentioned investment pieces recently, perhaps a series of articles on ways to wear them as the centre piece of different outfits might be good?!?
I like the layout of the website. The articles are easily accessible and the photos on them are all present in a quick scroll. Contrast this with GQ top 100 where you have to sit and click through them one by one which is a nightmare. So please stay away from that kind of layout.
Inspirational galleries, a forum and user profiles really appeal to me. Keep up the great work FB!
I am excited of the prospect of a Fashion Beans forum, cannot wait to see the result! Good luck guys x
I would love to see an article on the rise of the modern metrosexual
Having an article on how to shop thrift stores successfully would be a great one to read!
I appreciate the simplicity of FB and I don’t think there needs to be any change on the layout.
Iam greatful for the replies on twitter. THANKS
I agree with the forums thing to an extent. A completely separate and basic forum is dated. It needs to be integrated into the existing site so that some content is fed into the home page.
For example, the way main articles are displayed on the home page would be the same as they are now, except viewing the full article would take the reader to a forum thread, where the first post is the writer’s article, and all the posts underneath would act like the comments system here for both readers and writers.
Some other content like links to the latest threads could also be shown on the right column, to give new readers a look into the kind of stuff that goes on in the forums.
With a forum style system users could also be able to favourite threads, and subscribe to others so that they are notified of new posts via email or when they log in, etc.
So long as the home page still looks more like a website (as it does now) than a traditional forums index page, the whole site could effectively be based off forum software. I’m not sure what the latest and greatest software is, but I’ve seen a few sites that use this kind of method.
A few comments unrelated to the layout, but I’m with Scott; some other ‘affordable’ retailers could get some mention. Of course, leave home page links for the sponsors, but when you do an article on specific items (jeans, boots, jackets, etc.), you could include some of the items from other stores too. I’m aware sponsoring may come into the scheme of things, but it would be a shame not to broaden your range a little with some items from other stores.
There are several good ones. Burton for starters (especially as I feel they tend to offer a style suited to slightly older men than the likes of Topman and some of the others), New Look, H&M, and of course, River Island (I do a lot of my shopping there… they just seem to produce a good portion of things that suit my style).
NIICE! like the ideas. except I do agree on the don’t do too much thing. I think all you collaborations with the online stores are also cool. One other thing to think about is something you are already doing. Partially at least. Incorporating avant garde fashion and more couture-esque fashion into the every day wardrobe. Just an idea. I have seen it done and it really works! Do’s and Don’ts is a definite “Do”!
Above all, keep things simple in presentation. Ultimately you want mass appeal for this website and the average high street shopping man is easily confused or gets disinterested if things seem to be wandering too much towards catwalk examples and high end high brow discussions on clothes. This is the mistake of style.com/GQ..pretty much most of the mens lifestyle publications/sites. Although you are doing a great job of putting a lot out there for us to digest and broadening the horizons of the average male, there is a danger of the site going the way of the rest. Womens mass media fashion content is always so simple in terms of trends, application and advice. Something I feel is not always apparent with fashion journalism aimed at men. Too often it caters for the ultra fashionistas!
Street Styles would be AWESOME!
And I second what Mush said, definitely.
I love all of the new ideas, esp the Street Syle photographs. I’m super excited for that section.
About streetstyle photography, let users post them in the forum and make a top-10 everyone month and do a little interview with the top 3.
The new features all sound like they’d be worth while especially the vouchers change up as I’m sure a lot of your readers such as myself continuously look for discount codes. Also, I think it would be cool if in addition to your galleries bit; you had a section where readers could upload a picture of there hair styles, or outfit that relates to the topics you talk about. There’s a lot of trends or tips that people have which would be a booster for your site if people could share them. Besides that can’t wait for the additions!!
This is a better response than I ever could of imagined. Thank you all! You have given me so many ideas and so much inspiration that I feel a bit overwhelmed with the work load!
Just going to leave this running a couple more days and type up my thoughts over the weekend. Gives it chance to get knocked off the homepage by our latest article and then the comments will probably die down a bit.
Hi,
I love the articles and whatnot, but there need to be a sextion on music and possib sex and relation
I think this site is excellent already. It is one of my go to fashion places in my busy week. The visuals are great, I hope you keep the dark background it makes your pictures pop and yours site stand out from the rest. Having said that everything needs freshening every so often. I mean come on we need to change our clothes…lol
> I love the forum idea, I bet it will get heated in there… people love their fashion here.
> How about some/ more Men’s runway videos?
> How about reader fashion pictures; either of themselves or someone know?
I smell an IPhone app coming….. Hmmm
I don’t agree with everything that is written here but I really appreciate that fact that is it here. Men’s fashion needs to be discussed on the same level as Women’s. Thank you for loving it like we do.
Love the Street style photography And Galleries idea. can’t wait! <3 FashionBeans!
Your Account is cool and Street Styles would be AWESOME!
the ideas sound brilliant and i agree a forum would be great. i would also like it as a couple have mentioned if you could include more bottom price high street stores (river island, h&m, new look etc) aswell as topman for people like me with minimal disposable income :)