THE BLUE ROSE

14/04/1999

It seems the time has come for me to explain what I meant when I first created the idea of a Blue Rose Site. I've been contacted by many fans of Twin Peaks who want me to brand their site as Blue Roses, and many are disappointed when I tell them I disagree. This is almost certainly because I didn't really make clear what the criteria was. I hope the following explanation will shed more light on the issue, as it seems a lot of people misinterpreted what I had previously written. It's quite amazing how many overnight Twin Peaks sites were created with a red curtain background when I wrote "A brief glimpse of red velvet curtains" - this is a metaphor, not a design tip.. :) Here's the original explanation. And now for the lighter version: Imagine you find a Twin Peaks site via a standard search engine. You peruse through it, and even though it may take a while to load, and the graphics may seem a bit 'all over the place' and clogged, you think "What the heck! There's so little on the Net about Twin Peaks I might as well be grateful that I found a site." Fair enough. You scroll to the bottom, and find the handy little 'Web Ring' gadget. Before you know it, you're surfing numerous Twin Peaks Sites. Starting to feel you're looking at the same site over and over again? Wishing it would load a bit faster, and that the owner had designed it a bit friendler to your PC's cache? Seen those 'Red Curtains' a few too many times now? Ditto. That's what set me off to create this Twin Peaks Site. A good design. But what do I mean by that? Design could mean anything! To me, a good Twin Peaks Site should have an intelligent navigation. The owner should not place every single option available on the opening page, forcing the viewer to wait while everything minus the extended family loads away. By good design I also mean that the owner should use original graphics, scanned/obtained personally, not copied from another site. Trust me, I did this with a very early version of my TP site, and I was damn grateful to delete the old graphics and use my own :). I also think it shows an element of pride in one's work. Furthermore, the owner should take the time to learn about graphics, and how to optimise them size-wise so that the viewer isn't alienated by graphic sizes. There's nothing more to turn me off a Twin Peaks Site than huge image maps which dominate the screen only to look rather tacky anyway. (and yes, this is from my own experience - I also used to have image maps - it's called the learning process). Finally, there's the element of personality. I find so many Twin Peaks Sites lack this. The owners stumbled across someone else's site, and decided to make their own mark. However, this is often done without thought. A site is created, but when you read the content, there's no hint of the person who made it, it's like reading the instructions on a Tampons box - simply re-stating what someone else has said in a new sentence. Boring as hell. So, still think you've got the stuff I'm talking about? Email me. Oh, and in case you are one of several people wondering where the actual Blue Rose Site list is which is the enfant terrible of all this hoo-hah, I'm still compiling it :)