Skin Critique

[Amber]

Skin Im working on

This is my first time doing a skin using non-neutral (Browns.. greys..) colors... Hows it look? Coding suggestions? Gradients? Ect...

[[Pideaux]]

VISUAL

Well, there isn't a whole lot to go on atm since all you really have is the banner and the BG. I like the BG and the banner fits in well with it. I only have a suggestion that might make things pop a little more.

• Banner BG - I see that the BG behind the dog is the same design as the BG of the entire forum. It looks nice and fitting the way it is now, but I want to say that it would look even better if the BG behind the canine was to the same scale as the BG of your board (to give the transparent board effect) - Does that make sense?
  
  I'm don't feel comfortable enough with my own graphical skills to comment any further, but I always feel comfortable commenting on organization and general feels of boards. Just a small idea that might bring out what you already have just a tad more maybe.
  

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• Viewed In - Google Chrome
  

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[Jeri Cherry]

The Good

Alright, I like the color choices you've made for the side as red, white, and black go good together. Your banner is fine, and I like the little bone shape you have on it. Your border has a nice color to it, and I like the half opacity for it.

The Advice

To be honest, even though the colors go good with each other, they're too harsh to fit comfortably together. While the colors don't hurt my eyes, I could see that they could with other's. Perhaps make your background black lighter or make the white darker on it, or just get a new background all together.

Perhaps lighten and desaturate your red on the forum, and lighten the black to a dark gray, like 262626 and make the red have a bit of orange to it, like A7322A. Your white could also be C4C4C4.

Try removing your forum jump. While it could be handy, I don't think many people use it and it's a waste of space.

You should also resize either your forum or your dynamic table underneath your welcome table. They should fit perfectly together, not be different sizes as it looks odd, especially when you click a tab and it resizes the forum again.

Also, your border is too wide. Perhaps you should make it be 5 or 10 pixels larger than your forum. Also, make an image for the top part as well, as the border ends when the welcome table menu ends.

Also again, just for cosmetic reasons, perhaps you should move around some things on the dynamic table or add an update tab to it so it doesn't look so messy. I recommend moving the affiliates to the bottom of the forum, as most forums have them there.

[Amber]

Pideaux:
To be honest it was never my intent to have the banner seem to be transparent... it is inverse of the background.. but I do like your idea to have it seem transparent. Although when I first made the rough draft of the banner, the design was the same size as the background and the staff on my site HATED it lol.

Thank you, for your ideas ^-^

Jeri Cherry:
I dont see me getting a new background all together, as it was what the entire skin was built around tehe. But I like your idea to desaturate it to make it less harsh. All the colors on the site where pulled from this image, so when its desaturated I can pull colors from it again to use for all the details.

-is guilty of using Forum Jump on a daily basis- XD

Im not sure what to do about the size of the table/forum... as at the moment they are both set to the same size... and NOTHING I do will keep the table from resizing when you click the Pack Tab. The only thing I could do to keep that from happening is make the forum wider Which Im pretty sure the whole proboard community is against lol.

As for the welcome table... that was a HUGE hassel in making this skin... I couldnt get the border to go all the way up over the logo... so I put the logo in the dynamic table... and removed the logo... this removed my menu.. which I kinda need to get into the admin area.. I looked all over for a code that I could use to maybe put the menu under the dynamic table.. so that it would all be together (like the initial design of the forum) The best I could do is a code that seperates it from the logo... putting it at the very top of the forum where it looks stupid as all get out.

Ill try out the thinner border, sounds nice.

As for the organization of the table... No one bothered to read the updates when they where a Tab.. and I did a site wide poll of what they liked best for the organization and this won, so although I agree its a bit to wide... I gotta go with what my members like on that one XD

Thank you

[Amber]

Edits:
I moved the Menu, and the Affiliates XD
Resized the border
Resized Packs Tab
Resized Dynamic Table
Changed the Color Scheme to Grey/Red/White/Black

Gave Up On:
Desaturating the background
Desaturating removes all color, getting rid of the red x in the middle... I really want that red x... So I Changed the color scheme a bit..

[Amber]

-pokes-
Changes made to skin... Comments?