Graphics and Design Work

Hi all,

As you're probably aware, we're having a pretty major overhaul on the graphics side of the forum presently. This is a note firstly to apologise for any inconvenience and/or confusion caused. If you have any concerns or have spotted any bugs, please let us know! Secondly, if you have any suggestions as to how we can enhance the graphics to make this place look less like it was made in 1995 then that would be great too.

I'm opening this topic up for all comments/moans/feedback related to the design work. As a team, we feel it's really important to work with you, our users, to make the forum as slick and functional as possible.

We look forward to hearing from you 

All the best,
Pendrin and the NS team

As I've suggested to Captain Admin, why can we not have an adult section for the older members to discuss things in that the kiddies might... well, not appreciate?  If this had been implemented when I last suggested it, I'm sure the forum would have gone better than it did before.

Minty Cyberman wrote:As I've suggested to Captain Admin, why can we not have an adult section for the older members to discuss things in that the kiddies might... well, not appreciate?  If this had been implemented when I last suggested it, I'm sure the forum would have gone better than it did before.

Minty, we have dealt with your request before and the answer remains the same. This forum is suitable for all ages and is not here to be exclusionary towards certain age groups. If you're looking for conversation on more mature topics, then I suggest you look elsewhere.

I think it would look better if the forum wasn't transparent as the background is a bit distracting to the main forum.

Love the design!  But as Larry said, it's a bit transparent, hopefully something can be done about that.

~Valeyard

Thanks for your feedback guys!

The forum's transpercy is already at 94% opacity, and if I notch it up any more then you can't see the lovely background design that Pendrin has made, which is kinda the point of the translucency of the body of the forum. But I've just put it up to 96%. That's the best I can get it without it being too opaque to see the background.

Hope that's a little bit better, even if it is only a tiny bit.

I'm loving all the design elements! Nice work guys, I think the forum's looking better than ever right now

MarthaJonesFan wrote:I'm loving all the design elements! Nice work guys, I think the forum's looking better than ever right now

Much appreciated MJF

Today saw the addition of new buttons for composing posts a threads - they should be slightly more visually striking compared to the previous text buttons now for ease of use. I've also modernised the buttons on the toolbar at the top of the page, as the defaults were using really outdated logos for some of the social media sites - on that note, be sure to give 'em a test and promote them on your favourite social media platform(s)

Still to come are new buttons for profile links and post manipulation (edit, report, delete etc. buttons) in addition to some snazzy new ranks for staff. If there is demand for it, we may implement a proper ranking system based upon post count for ordinary users.

Happy posting!

Not quite linked to the graphic design stuff, but I had a thought - would it be worth a sort of "general queries/problems" thread being made? Probably in the lobby for news and announcements or something.

We had one on DWFO and it was quite useful - an easy place to ask questions, mention if there were any glitches, get help, etc. It's the sort of place where, say, Minty might ask about the mature corner, or Nigel could ask why his threads were deleted, that sort of thing.

It'd help cut down on any potential spam as the forum grows larger and keep things a bit more neat and tidy, too.

The Professor wrote:Not quite linked to the graphic design stuff, but I had a thought - would it be worth a sort of "general queries/problems" thread being made? Probably in the lobby for news and announcements or something.

We had one on DWFO and it was quite useful - an easy place to ask questions, mention if there were any glitches, get help, etc. It's the sort of place where, say, Minty might ask about the mature corner, or Nigel could ask why his threads were deleted, that sort of thing.

It'd help cut down on any potential spam as the forum grows larger and keep things a bit more neat and tidy, too.

That's not a bad idea TP. I'll get on to it now. 

Back on topic, the design is going very well Pendrin. Like the look of the new reply buttons even if they are a bit big. 

Cromwell wrote:That's not a bad idea TP

Please, "Alex" is fine! Or even "Prof". (Maybe I should change it.) 

TP just makes me think of toilet paper.   That acronym never occurred to me!

Back on topic, the design is going very well Pendrin.

Agreed! I'm quite fond of the hexagonal design. Could anyone post the full picture, just so I can see what the middle bit looks like?

The Professor wrote:

Cromwell wrote:That's not a bad idea TP

Please, "Alex" is fine! Or even "Prof". (Maybe I should change it.) 

TP just makes me think of toilet paper.   That acronym never occurred to me!

Back on topic, the design is going very well Pendrin.

Agreed! I'm quite fond of the hexagonal design. Could anyone post the full picture, just so I can see what the middle bit looks like?

No problem "Prof"   , it is a beautiful piece of work that Pendrin took ages to make. 

Scary wrote:Thread moved to new and now more relevant General Queries/Opinions section.

It'll be named in my honour, right? 

The full art for the forum background is quite lovely, anyway. I really like that.

All props to Pendrin! As MJF said, the forum really is looking better than it ever has before!

As requested by Cromwell, I did some promotional art for the forum. Could I get some feedback on this forum promo poster from everyone? It'd be greatly appreciated!  


~Valeyard

Hmm. The concept is good, but it needs clearing up and refining. Like, take the text - the columns don't line up, and in a few places it's a bit too squadged together and suchlike. Same is true of a few of the pictures; most notably on Spock, because Leonard Nimoy isn't that thin. It's clear the image has been compressed, and that does the whole thing no favours, really. 

See, I've done this as a sort of proof of concept, to demonstrate what I was talking about; the images are at their natural size, the font is formatted better, so on and so forth. I think yours has better pictures, and generally the banner size works better, but you need to just make sure the images aren't stretched, and that the font is neater.

The Professor wrote:Hmm. The concept is good, but it needs clearing up and refining. Like, take the text - the columns don't line up, and in a few places it's a bit too squadged together and suchlike. Same is true of a few of the pictures; most notably on Spock, because Leonard Nimoy isn't that thin. It's clear the image has been compressed, and that does the whole thing no favours, really. 

See, I've done this as a sort of proof of concept, to demonstrate what I was talking about; the images are at their natural size, the font is formatted better, so on and so forth. I think yours has better pictures, and generally the banner size works better, but you need to just make sure the images aren't stretched, and that the font is neater.

That looks excellent Prof! Thank you for your feedback, I'll get around to making another concept soon, as I'm currently busy with other stuff and don't have time to fit Photoshop in just yet.

~Valeyard