New forum design ideas.

Chalex and I have been discussing paying for a custom made design for the ATK website, with a professional designer making the layout, template, etc, while I'll design all the pretty bits, i.e the actual colours and style of the site, like the buttons and header. This will save money since the designer will only be doing half the job.

The reason for deciding this is that our current design is free, so many other websites may have it as well, and in my opinion it's a tad too 'loud' repetitive. Paying for a design specific to us will make ATK look more professional, hopefully attracting more members.

Anyway, you're the people who are going to be using the site and forums, so it's basically down what the new design will look like.

So post any ideas you have, may it be about colour schemes, dimensions and size, differences it should have from our current design, or links to any other websites that you like the look of.

well i find the black,red and white make a good match. :)

I think that maybe we could have some very diverse ideas. Instead of blocks and such have diffrent shapes. Maybe a abstract feel. Also i think maybe black background with some silver would look nice.

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Originally Posted by Darkeagle

I think that maybe we could have some very diverse ideas. Instead of blocks and such have diffrent shapes. Maybe a abstract feel. Also i think maybe black background with some silver would look nice.

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Basically so it looks like your painting? :p (In joke.)

I like the idea of a black and red colour scheme, it worked for DutchDesignz.

I think it would be to loud, one of the problems i have with the current site

instead of having things boxed off? why not round the edges off so it gives a more smoother and cooler look?

I really don't want a dark design, unless somebody can show me one that's been done well and looks good.

Black and red are used too much. Green and black looks cool, and while we're at it let's change the Community's name to Viper's Venom Community XD

The entire community should be bloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. (Preferably baby blue, it goes well with pink and yellow).

Baby blue, pink and yellow. Only real men would use those colours!

PINK:

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/pink.png

There be some pink!

Get some purple in there.

I thought the site was awesome how it was.

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Originally Posted by ez64

I thought the site was awesome how it was.

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TBH, I agree, it looks nice as it is. I don't think it's too loud. But I would also be more than happy to try out some new colour schemes providing they look good.

The site is awesome as it is, however the template we are using is a free one, therefore lots of other people have it, what Chalex/Chazlene want to do is purchase a unique template for ATK. TBH money can be better spent.

If pink goes into the site I will refuse to use it, purple and baby blue are bearable but pink=CHAV!

I still think sliver and black would look good

Silver/grey and black would be awesome.

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Originally Posted by VoX

TBH money can be better spent.

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I was trying to hint it as well.

Dont mean to ruin the fun but wouldent that cost ALOT of money to get a designer :S

Blue Orange and Green would be cool

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Originally Posted by wM Marshy

Dont mean to ruin the fun but wouldent that cost ALOT of money to get a designer :S

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Exactly, although a new design would be cool, it is a waste of money!

Well that's why I said I'm going to design half of it, to save on costs. And if it's still too expensive then we'll pay for a ready made layout and heavily modify it. It's not a waste of money, a more professional looking site will attract more people, buying a dedi server won't.

In terms of colours, silver and black would be okay, but we do want some saturation. In my opinion we should stick with the yellowy orange and maybe grey to go with it.

yellow-orange with some red! and some turquorise (is that how you spell it)


cant DCH help you out they offer web design

DCH do web design?

Are there any previews of what we can have as a template?

DCH do web design, but we are after a well-coded template for vBulletin which I don't think DCH does. If we just wanted a website which wasn't integrated into vBulletin then I would definitely consider DCH.

So what is being veered towards and are there any custom made templates so we can have a look at what we could get?

We need a favicon. Chalex, make us a favicon, I don't like the blank page next to ATK in my favourites :D. Here, I tried to make one in 2 minutes:

http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gifhttp://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5403/atkskullgm4.gif

Good point Phantom, we definitely need a favicon. Chazlene, it would be good if you could have a go at making one, if not, I will use Phantom's :).

Use Phantom's, I don't see how I could make it any different. :p

seems like a good enough favicon to me... what else dya need to have in it?!

I probably got the transparancies all wrong, while it looks good on white, it probably looks dire on dark colours. Plus I just resized the image on our banner :D. I'm sure chaz could do a much better job.

You say that but its pretty good!

I've been thinking, and discussing with Chalex, about having a fairly cartoony looking design, a bit like the Battlefield:Heroes website. This hopefully will be more unique, unlike any other clan or gaming community website which is all glossy and metallic.

What do you all think?

sounds good

For those of you that think that this is a bad idea, we won't be going full out cartoony everywhere. The site will look more fun rather than crazy.

The site is likely to have mostly lighter colours, similar to the current site, but with some additions.

Obviously this is one of our first ideas, so we are welcome to more suggestions to move the idea forward.

Nice, I like the look of the Battlefield Heros website.

I know I'm not round often enough for my opinion to really hold any value, but that's what I think.

Black/red is too cliché too and as far as I can see, ATK are not cliché at all.

Yeah, the design is free and some other people probably have it too, but so what? it's a simple to use interface which won't put people off! What we don't want is something too complex so that people take ages to find something on their first visit or the page takes ages to load etc.

I think we should use purple. Just my two cents.

I think we should have a favicon... Chop Chop.

I have been playing around with the favicons for the last few hours and think I have finally managed to make it work in all browsers. The .ico file that Chazlene gave me didn't work, so I had to make firefox use the .png and IE use a new .ico that I generated. All other browsers also seem to work well with it. Let me know if it all works for you.

It doesn't work on Vexplorer, but that may just be because I didn't add a Favicon box...

But yeah it looks good, a bit weird without the wick but at 16x16 you wouldn't really see it anyway.

Yeah it works for me now, nice one. It chops the wick off though :P.