A Concept

[Dylan]

Hey, I just whipped together a concept idea for a header... I kinda designed it with a slightly darker, more nighttime/dreamlike feel to it. I imagined the rest of the website's colours giving off a similar feel. (This is just the header though, and of course, is merely a concept.) I need to find a better font, something more cursive and dreamy. It definately needs better typography - it feels like it's missing something. But before I continue I'd like to see where you guys stand with this design so far at least. Let's hear some opinions? Ideas? Cheers, Dylan

[Aphius]

Hm... It is interesting. Something about it seems odd to me, not necessarily bad, but I'm not sure, I can't quite put my finger on it.

[Dylan]

I know what you mean. It doesn't seem entirely right, something about it. It could be the fact that its too busy on the left side. Or, like I said, the fonts and typography are quite bad. It also seems like it's missing something, but I'm not sure what yet... The colours perhaps might not be coming out the way I'd like them to... I'm designing on an LCD screen which has been known to display things quite differently than other monitors (I usually have to look at websites on other monitors before I publish them, especially if they're for clients). Overall, I don't know, it feels sort of amateurish, and that disappoints me. To be honest though, there IS something about it that I do like, I'm not quite sure still (haha oh god, I'm not sure about ANYTHING)... but there's something there that I want to toy around with. Perhaps it's simply the colour blue... Cheers, Dylan

[Placebo]

I like it a lot actually... but I also get that feeling of 'not quite right' I think its the shade of blue on the right, and a bit too much of it As well as the typography that looks a bit wrong

[Dylan]

K, well I changed the fonts, and added a little something to balance it out a bit. It looks quite a bit better in my opinion. Cheers, Dylan

[Lomebririon]

Is... Is that Vivaldi?

[Dylan]

Is... Is that a bad thing?

[Lomebririon]

No, it's just that that's one of my favourite fonts. It's also the main font I use for my SoI logo. Did you know you have to pay $32 if you want that font now? It took me a while to find another free copy after I lost my old one.

[nina]

Hey Dylan, I really like what you've done, I'm just not so sure it fits in with DV all that well? I think of DV as being alot more light and airy and etherial...not so dark and mysterious? I dunno. Those trees just remind me of creepiness.

[icedawg]

i like it a lot too! i find it too spooky and dark (not necessarily tone, but atmosphere) for us though...too many people already think of lucid dreaming as evil and sinister, etc., so we don't want to endorse that sort of view of it. i do like the colours though so i don't want to immediately say it has to be brighter; perhaps those colours or similar could just be used differently, with different images, etc. the silver bars i want (at the top and bottom) i think would help to introduce some lightness of course. regardless, i'd say the design concepts behind that banner are pointed in the right direction.

[Dylan]

Hhm...? The other one could be a halloween theme! Haha Cheers, Dylan

[Aphius]

Hm. It reminds me of sunday church, like a church website.

[Dylan]

FACK. Ok I know what you mean... I was hoping nobody else would notice that! . I hate how clouds give off that image of christianity... the font doesnt help either. sadf;lsadkfjsa;l *Opens up Photoshop* The next one will be good, I swear. Dylan

[Dylan]

k hows this? i like it

[Aphius]

Yeah, thats great. I whipped this up, what's everyone reckon? I'm not sure about the colours of the fonts myself. I could improve on them.

[Dylan]

icedawg, do we need to stick to the blue colourscheme? or can I fiddle with others? I had some other ideas.? Cheers, Dylan

[Aphius]

Originally posted by Dylan icedawg, do we need to stick to the blue colourscheme? or can I fiddle with others? I had some other ideas.? Cheers, Dylan I think for it all to look right that there should be consistency with the colour scheme. It'd probably look ok if the colour went well with blue but unless we change the theme of the whole site...

[Dylan]

oh yeah, no i get that. I was just wondering whether he was merely doing the banner, or the entire site... Colour schemes are quite easy to change with these PHP bulletin boards.

[AcidBasick]

Originally posted by Dylan I love this one.

[Dylan]

To be honest, I like it as well. Perhaps something could be done to make it less "chuch-like". Aphius did have a good point. Any ideas? Dylan

[Rakkantekimusouka]

Well, I'm clueless about headers, and layouts -- but maybe something could be done with this. At least if nothing else, how does it look as a plain old banner? I realize that we probably couldn't have Sakura from Cardcaptor Sakura in there, ultimately, if we did decide to use it somehow, but... Edit: I know the text is a little grainy -- I just read this thread and did up the pic real quick. I could fix it, if need be.

[Dylan]

Hhm. That image is really cartoony, and icedawg said he wanted something more professional looking. But it definately gave me an idea. I like the night sky, the stars.. and the moon.. that nice glow it has to it. Perhaps a mixture of that, and my other concept. Instead of a cloudy sky, it could be a cloudy night sky, and behind the title, emerging from some clouds, would be a nice bright moon and a star filled sky. It would definately be darker, but it'd probably give off a warmer, more peaceful feeling than that other "creepy" one I made. I'll make a concept of this idea in a few days. I'm imagining it looking pretty spiffy... You'll see . Cheers, Dylan

[Dylan]

Ooh perhaps to make it more dreamlike, a "northern lights" feel could be added to it as well.

[Aphius]

Hmm... Sounds mysterioulsy good.

[Dylan]

Well I actually wanted to see what it would look like and it took much less time than I expected... just like 15 minutes or so. Here's what I came up with. I wasn't certain what to do with the moon, so here are a couple ideas (first one without): I think I might like the last one best... I'm also not sure about the bar at the bottom... perhaps a deeper blue or purplish colour.. I don't want to toy around with it now though. Anyway, what do you guys think? Cheers, Dylan