Looking for ideas for forum skin(s)

[DsgnrsTLZAdmin]

Well, I've come along way in my forum I've been writing for nearly a month now. (thank you all for your help by the way) The time has come where I need to really think about the looks of the thing. First off I'm going to need some help in making a default skin. From there I'll build alternate skins myself. I am horrible at this part. I don't really have an eye for making things pretty. If anyone can point me in the right direction, maybe some of your work, some work here, some work there, I'll try and piece it togethor and consult back here and see what ya'll think and tweak it accordingly. Thanks...



designerstoolz.com/forum/index.php

[shlagish]

At first sight, it's too black.
It's also quite boxy but that can be okay with different colours...

The hover effect on the links is interestingly new.

Really, my biggest problem is the black.

[tboss132]

The site's just black and white, not too impressive to look at. There's a way a site can be plain and still look colorful. This site (coding forums) doesn't have too much graphics but it's still something to look at.

[DsgnrsTLZAdmin]

After taking those things into consideration, I have come to the hopeful conclusion that the right font, type, and color will make it all look purdy. I'll get back here when I've worked with the font.

[DsgnrsTLZAdmin]

Oh yeah, the border colors don't apply in mozilla. I've had this trouble before and so have other people so I'll look around on here and find the trouble. Don't view it with mozilla and think that's the way I intended it to look. :p

[redhead]

I'll agree about it looking kinda boxy, that's definatley the first thing that jumps out at me.

You're right about the font... it looks kinda cheap. Try something like Arial, Verdana, Trebuchet MS perhaps... just to make it a little easier on the eyes when you are trying to read it.

The design seems to lack contrast in the colours and interest in what they do... Perhaps try making the header bars on the forum light with dark text or something, just to break up the design abit. The box's all seem to be differant widths too, it wont be too hard to make them all a consistant width.

On a much more subjective note, the logo doesn't seem all that appealing to me, but everyone is gonna be different.

Hope this helps a little, it's a good start, just needs a little refining! :thumbsup:

[DsgnrsTLZAdmin]

Getting better feedback than I expected. ;)


I'll work on ths font like I said hopefully tonight. Contrast...I don't want alot of contrast. Maybe I could play with a little more contrast, but not much more will do. Logo... I like the logo... maybe I'll play with other designs and see if I can't come up with a better one. Table widths...I was going for the top and bottem box widths to be at 100% and 98% for the center box. Think it would look better all at 100%? I'll check into that. Refining...Got alot of that to do. Not just in the design...once I'm done with the design I'm going to get it all validated. Then comes beta testing! Got to find those security loopholes and errors here and there. Bugs...got to squash those.


I got lots of work to do. Hopefully one more month and I'll be done with the forum. 2 months isn't all that long for a project of this size...is it? :confused: Am I slow? lol. Thank you all I really mean it.

[shlagish]

I would advise getting it validated and fix the bugs and loopholes before doing the desing, although I don't really know why. It just seems like the easier way to do it.

Also, what is that forum about? I think that would help get more comments on the design.
:thumbsup:

[shlagish]

hmm, I think it would be good to have different colours for the navigation and for the forums and for the forum stats. It would help divide the page into sections. If would want to keep the black going, then you could put different shades instead of different colours...

[DsgnrsTLZAdmin]

Hm. Forum stats.... It's ugly. I need to change that. While I'm changing that, I should change the header too, to match, and make it different from the center. Sound good?

I would advise getting it validated and fix the bugs and loopholes before doing the desing, although I don't really know why. It just seems like the easier way to do it.

Not for me. I've done projects of the like before and for me, it's easier to do it the way I'm doing it. To each there own I guess. I don't make sense I guess but it works for me. :D

[DsgnrsTLZAdmin]

Also, what is that forum about? I think that would help get more comments on the design

For me, I'm going to be using it for product discussion, site discussion, community projects, coding help, just about anything and everything development related. I'm going open source on it and sending it out in the world a few versions down the road. Hopefully soon. It's going to have themes....

[shlagish]

That colour thing sounds good. It will help seperate content, be easier on the eye.

[shlagish]

If it's a forum on web developping, it should obay the web developping rules. I think your text / background contrast should be higher. Legibility is very important. It would seem strange for a web developping forum to not
want alot of contrast.

Just my opinion.

[DsgnrsTLZAdmin]

Updated. I changed the font type, font colors and the table widths are all at 100% now. Now I'm going to get the border colors to work in Firefox

[shlagish]

I like it better already with the new font colours.

[shinko_metsuo]

nice forum now you need to plug a banner in to make it look perfect

[DsgnrsTLZAdmin]

nice forum now you need to plug a banner in to make it look perfect


A banner...havnt thought of that. I have no idea how it should and could look.

[shlagish]

I would suggest adding some graphics. A banner is good. But something else would also be good.

[DsgnrsTLZAdmin]

I have no idea what graphics to add. Maybe I'll try replacing the links in the header with images.

[shlagish]

I don't know. It just seems to me that there too much text compared with non-text. Even adding borders would help I think.