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[Don Houston]

OK, so I have completed my own theme for my site, Right now it is pretty much dead, but I really want to know what other people think of the site

http://www.topicsbb.com/forum/

I know about the Graphic but for now it will have to do

 

[Martee]

I am sorry to say I am going to be a tad harsh on this one but only for the greater good of your site because I like to see sites thrive.

My main bug bear as I open the page is the unwelcoming large logo you have plastered across the width of the body. I know you said the graphic will have to do for now but you could surely do a lot better than that. The letters are rough and fairly pixelated in some areas, way too much drop shadow and way too dark and the two images to the left are just, horribly pixelated. For myself, a logo is the first thing you see when you open a site and if a logo is done professionally, it sets the precedent for your site whereas in your case, your logo says to me 'I just threw this up quickly and I don't care" which is not the image that you want to convey. There are many places where you can get a semi-professional logo done for you for forum cash if you're low on real money although if you do have real money, I can recommend the person who made our logo to you.

The next thing I noticed was the strange button overlays for the navigation area. I do not know if they are meant to have those white rounded corner stroke type things

but to me, they just do not fit in and visually, it is always little things that you have to look out for because if you spot one little thing that is wrong, your brain will subconsciously focus on that as opposed to the rest of your site.

As for the theme itself, whilst I have to say congratulations for having the know how and and actually making your own theme it doesn't fit right in my opinion. For what is essentially a GD forum, it is way too dark for my liking. Try changing the page background to something light with a bit of opaque textures (Stripes) or even 2% noise (assuming you're on photoshop) and then change the body backgorund to suit the colour you made the main background. This next bit may just be a personal preference but here we go.

Looking at this bit to compliment what I said above about the theme

I feel you could use some CSS to round the corners of that area and make it more orange because if done right, the orange should compliment the nice, light colours in the background and make the whole site more 'light' and thus easier on the eye, encouraging people to stay.

Thats all I can really say though, hope it isn't too harsh. ;3

 

[Don Houston]

No, it is not harsh, but most of what you said I have no idea how to fix. I guess I am going to start from scratch again and see if I can fix it right. It may not get done right now but I will work on it. This time, I am going to take my time and review things a bit better. I guess I will try to use a new board so that I can work on that all at one time with out having to take the site down. I have a few people I know, and I am going to see if they can work with me on this, but it won't be until sometime next month before I will have the chance to really dig into it. Thanks for the review

 

[Martee]

No worries, I hope it helps you in some respect but please, if you ever need any help feel free to ask us here. I have no experience in styling SMF but I'm sure I could help with bits and pieces.

 

[Don Houston]

Thanks, I know of a few people and I am going to look around to see if they can help me. I was trying to get the forum to look like the main site, but that did not happen so now I have to figure out how to do that

 

[milksheikh]

Forum is in maintenance mode?