First front page mock-up for national site

This is it, the first look at colors, navigation, and general feel of our national site. Big difference from the wireframes, understandably so, but cool to finally see something.

They are two completely different approaches and I have a reaction to both, but I'll save it for early next week as I try to let the look and feel sink in a little bit. But not too long as we're chatting with the design team on Tuesday to go over the front page. After that, we want to wrap all of the creative up in 5-7 days. Ambitious, I know.

Between now and then, we basically have three cracks at it before all creative assets are scheduled to be handed over to partners #2 who will attach code to the images and build out the one, possibly two, pages living outside of Convio - the wiki and blog.

Things are coming together, but it will be tight. Very tight. And, btw, the below mock-ups are missing logo (upper left) and tag line as that's still in the works. It's really going to be a new us. My goal for moving forward is just to make sure all of the moving parts come together during the first week of April.


The first two looks are above, and my reaction will follow (I'm trying to take a look, take a break, then come back to it - a couple of times), but any immediate reaction from you? What works, doesn't work, etc?