Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken Smith
My Son Mike has come up with this. You like?
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I like the use of Kens hand writing! Thats got a nice friendly feel and the wood is a lovely touch if you can get the colour of the forum to tie into it (shouldn't be too hard). Have you planned what kind of feel you want the forums to have? Having an overall concept in mind can sometimes help whittle choices down when it comes to the detail. For example, if you wanted to go for a feel that was warm, with organic tones (emphasising the importance of wood), then you might also choose basses or features that had been photographed in soft light rather than a hard flash.
I think the images of the basses are cut out a little roughly, I've learned there's a real art to doing this properly. You've got to leave the edges slightly fuzzy so that the objects don't look too disassociated from the background. It also helps to pay attention to the lighting sources used on the images - too many sources of light can prevent the banner from looking visually cohesive.
The other thing is that I've found it helps to think about the banner having layers of depth - ie. a foreground, midground and background. Usually I put the lettering in the midground, have some foreground features and then a background texture. Usually it helps for the background texture to have some kind of depth to it on its own.
Using transparency helps to ensure that the elements aren't all competing for attention as well. I generally knock the background textures back to 70% or even 50% opacity.
Was the irregular shape of the banner intentional or was it just part of the sketchy work in progress?
If Mike wants any help on that front I'm happy to assist.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Prowse
it's not the colour, just that I don't know how to find my way around.
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Richard, just get in there and muck about.
Pretty much anything you break I can fix apart from deleted posts.
I've had to do just that as admin and there are HUNDREDS of settings behind the scenes that I need to learn. Then there's the stuff they DON'T tell you, like how to import a skin.