New Design?

i do think something new would be nice...the tech one just seems too..."techy" if that makes sense lol. and i like the current banner that we have

 

hmmm a little sprucing up here and there would be good. But for some reason I don't like the new design Seth just seems tooo technical.

 

Whoa... too tech. I like the lightness of the old one. Bright is key. But I am certainly not opposed to a re-design. I'm actually design-oriented myself

So... Back to the design. Brightness is key, once again. I would say that "element" of the second link is nice...(link) but not so purple maybe? It's just nice and clean, easy to navigate, and not too overpoweringly "web2.0" if you get my drift.

So yeah...

 

I quite like this one:
http://www.extremepixels.com/forum/index.php?styleid=71

Its simple, light yet quite groovy

 

OMG - the links to the various options seem to be completely screwed up for me.

I started scrolling thru them - and halfway it all went haywire - and now I seem to be stuck in one that I don't really like anyway...

I'll keep playing and see what happens...

 

Meh, I'm not a huge fan of the new skin. Mainly because I love the door in the current banner. I agree that with this forum, lighter is definitely better. I think I'm a fan of light blue with this site. It's a nice cool color. I think the skin Dave posted looks good.

 

I like iSkin (same one as Dave chose), cobalt skin and Aria.

All light blue styles. I think the lighter colours feel more welcoming than black backgrounds etc. I also find black text on a light background easier to read than the other way around.

I also think it shouldn't shout "gay" at you (so no bright Barbie pinks, rainbows etc) as this could put some people off and could be more embarrassing if someone sees the screen from a distance when you are here.

One thing I would like is a full width option. On my new laptop with its 1920x1200 screen, this forum takes up only one third of the width. ### has narrow and wide versions of the same style (selected from the thingie at the bottom left) which lets people use what they prefer. If we do agree on a new style (which would be the default I guess) I think this standard vBulletin one should also be an option.

 

I agree with Paul. It's definitely nice to be able to go here and, once you scroll past the logo, it's kind of hard for people looking at your screen to see what this site is about, without reading anything.

 

That's a good reason for having the default vBulletin skin as a user selectable option - then as Step says once you have scrolled past the logo it looks just like any other forum.

Obviously the idea for getting a new default skin is so that it doesn't look like every other forum when potential new members arrive here.

 

i still think we should keep the old banner though! unless someone makes a newer, cooler one

 

ahhh we'll see, we'll see

 

I like the first two (obviously) - I dont like the "last post" part on 'aria' though.

But I had my heart set on barbie pink and rainbows

 

I like the ones that both Paul and Dave suggested, but this new one "tech"....(i've always been brutally honest and i won't stop now)....i really don't like it, it reminds me of the library prefects in my school (A clever way to say A.V geeks). Defintely a no for me.

Ditto, if we do change it (which i dont really think needs to happen, i havent gotten sick of this one yet and ive been here more than a year.

Agreed. Aria is cool up until it show the last post underneath as opposed to the side. But the first two are wicked. I wouldn't mind them if others voted for a change.

OMG, me too, we should go on strike!!:tantrum:

(obviously joking, love pink, just not on my EC:lol: )

 

Like iSkin, but maybe it needs a little more contrast between the different parts? I enjoy the clear distinction we have between each part in this layout. It's mostly on the main page that iSkin is too monochromatic for me.

And, overall, I think we have a slightly bland, but STURDY design with the with the current design. I don't think we've found a fair replacement yet, IMO.

 

So here's what I've been thinking,

Since we've mostly come to the conclusion that simple is good, but too simple is bad. What if we were to go with the iSkin, yet offer different variations of the (seemingly bland) colour? We could have blue, green, pink, purple, silver colour schemes that people are able to choose from.

I'm quite sure you can recolour the skins manually in photoshop (Image > Adjustment > Variations | Blue, 50%, x2)

It would end up looking something like these (excuse my hasty banner and recolouring )

[click to enlarge]

 

I'm reviving this thread for further discussion: What are your thoughts?

 

Tech is very cool! I like it a lot! (even if it does seem to be unpopular, heh) Those iSkin things seem pretty good too, though.

 

Tech is cool, but it's too dark IMHO. I'll do some research on themes.