Website Design Needed for Kickstarter-style Site

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This customer received 24 web designs from 3 designers. They chose this web design from dragnoir as the winning design.
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Web Design Brief
I need a design for a new website that is similar in concept in some ways to kickstarter.com, but with a completely different market.
On one side, the site allows people to post projects for people to help fund, but where kickstarter.com is focused on "creative" projects, this new site is focused on more serious "business-like" projects.
On the other side, the site allows visitors to help fund projects by pledging money in return for various rewards. In the attached image, ProjectDetailsConcept.png, the sidebar currently does not show the rewards mocked up, but there would need to be rewards listed there similar to what is shown here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gregab/physical-gif?ref=spotlight
The Project Details page will contain all the details for a given project. Note that some details are on different tabs on this page. Also note that the project description could be VERY long in some cases.
IMPORTANT: Although I have attached some concept images, please keep in mind that these are very rough and are mainly to illustrate what sort of content needs to be on the pages. None of the content on these mockup pages is final content.
Feel free to experiment with different layouts and concepts if you think they present the information better.
Pages Needed
1. Front Page - Shows main feature area, sub feature area, main menu, other links, search field and footer
2. Search/Browse Page - Lets users refine a search by clicking category names, locations, sort order, etc. Search results are listed below with next/prev controls and page number controls to navigate the results.
3. Project Details Page - Presents details of a given project. The specific details of the page content are not especially important. It is important that the Project Details Page allows multiple sections or tabs to be displayed though. The content in the sidebar of ProjectDetailsConcept.png is fairly representative of what might go there, especially in the top section of the sidebar. The top section should standout from the bottom section of the sidebar.
Keywords to try to relate in the site design: reliable, progressive, innovative, trustworthy, successful
Note that I do not yet have a logo for this site, but assume it is roughly the size and shape of the placeholder in the attached mockups.
Updates
I did some looking around at existing templates.
There are layout and color schemes in all of these that I like:
http://cms.template-help.com/wordpress_32285/ (I quite like this one & it has dynamic)
http://29674.templates.site2you.com/
http://osc3.template-help.com/stretched_16880/ (green with orange/yellow is nice)
http://images.osc3.template-help.com/wt_24127/index.html
Also, please give consideration to the font choice for the site. If necessary I can use cufon, Sifr or @fontface.
Added Friday, July 15, 2011
Project Deadline Extended
Reason: Give some additional time to refine designs.
Added Friday, July 15, 2011
NOTE: I added another file called GreenHeaderMockup.png that is based on one of the website links in my previous update.
Added Sunday, July 17, 2011
Industry/Entity Type
Business
Look and feel
Each slider illustrates characteristics of the customer's brand and the style your logo design should communicate.
Elegant
Bold
Playful
Serious
Traditional
Modern
Personable
Professional
Feminine
Masculine
Colorful
Conservative
Economical
Upmarket
Requirements
Must have
- There must be a dynamic "Featured Projects" area near the top of the home page. This is similar in concept to the featured apps shown in the top of the iTunes App Store. The set of available projects should somehow rotate or transition to focus on one project at a time while still leaving the others visible, but smaller. See the attached FrontPageConcept1.png image for a rough idea. Of course you are not responsible for coding the dynamic behavior, but you need to prepare the required graphical components to support any dynamic behavior you design.
The Search/Browse page must show a collection of "project cards", each of which contains some basic information about the project and an image. I have attached a file that shows some possible layouts for project cards.
See the attached SearchConcept1.png image for a concept that places all the search controls along the top, and the search results below. The concept shows two wide rows of project cards, but it would also be acceptable to show 4 rows of taller cards as in SearchConcept2.png
See the attached SearchConcept2.png image for a concept that places all the search controls in a sidebar, and the search results next to the sidebar. With this orientation, I think 3 tall project cards per row are all that can fit.
Should not have
- Must not use Flash or any other browser plugin.