SSNG [Sonic Stadium News Group] Layout 0.6 – May 2002 (Canned)
We had the design pretty much solid for every other page, but the main page was something to think about. Andrew and I liked the idea of the news being prominent on the main page, with the site updates to back it up as well.

At the end of the day, the tables I made looked out of place and out-of-date to be honest. That and we didn’t think the updates list was doing the page much justice underneath and seperated from the news…

SSNG [Sonic Stadium News Group] Layout 1 – June 2002
And there you go, the whole shishkebab. That was the main page design we felt was right for the website, despite it lasting two weeks, but hey. I still rather like those “Update” and “Headline” images though…

During the 2 weeks it had been launched and open to the public, SSNG had been given a lot of unneccessary stick. I mean, I’m sure if the GHZ had seen SHQ accidently use one of their images they’d be less verbal towards them, and vice-versa. The way it happened though was a rant from Sonic HQ fans over a simple misunderstanding. It was really the fans of the sites that did it, not the actual webmasters themselves ^_^ God, I hope followers of this website aren’t as bad… o_O

The Sonic Stadium 8 – Late July 2002
Welp, as it all went down the pan, and I decided to bring the ‘Stadium back, I had to quickly change the images on the current SSNG layout (albeit hurriedly) to make it evident that SSNG had dissipated. Hence the crummy layout in the end. As for The Sonic Stadium’s rebirth, I didn’t want SSNG to kill off what I had, so I decided to bring TSS from the dead.

There was, as you can see from the now crude layout, a lot of work to do to get back to where we were before this mess even began. I will never regret SSNG. But I will never forgive those that wrongly accused us either. SSNG, R.I.P…

October 2002
This was undoubtedly where The Sonic Stadium started picking up pace. And the fresh start from SSNG did us good. Zifei, the legendary founder of Sonic HQ, paid for hosting for TSS and when we moved, this design was born.

Despite troubles security wise and even being kicked off for using the resources we paid for by HostOnce (here’s a tip: don’t get hosted by them), this layout remained for several months to come.

June 2003
After getting used to a tiny bit of PHP, this was the first real results of my learning. The main page changed a few times, and the quality of the snap isn’t too great unfortunately, but you can see that this format was the start of something… erm… layout-ical. This was the start of another experimental phase in design. Joy for you lot, eh? =p

August 2003
This next step in TSS’ layout was simply taking the last layout further, rather than giving a whole new design. I smartened up the pages outside the main page, cleaned up the main page and moved the navigation bar closer to the header.

Many long time visitors cherish this layout as the best The Sonic Stadium has ever had – there were many calls shortly after the death of this layout to bring the sidebar into current iterations of the website.

March 2004
… Which brings us to this point – The Sonic Stadium’s 12th design in three years. Amazing, eh? Or rather, undecisive. The navigation was laid out in a “simpler” fashion, so everything was piled into four categories per channel.

After a quick Vox Pops with visitors on what to change on TSS, they feel that the navigation system of the previous design should return. Alongside this, The Sonic Stadium officially brought about a successful Network, which is going strong today.

8th June 2004
Layout 13, and the transformation is almost complete to what will be called ‘TSS Ultimate’ – The Sonic Stadium’s reportedly last layout. Too much time was being spent on working on site layouts; however, the site needed huge renovation, be it due to past shoddy designs or just poor planning.

This was the first step to TSS Ultimate – however, it was not until the next design where things would truly come into fruition…