What's your general process for creating a style?
 

I'm not a designer. Never was. I get by with some tooth pulling. When I'm asked to do a style, I generally don't have a real great way of going about it. How do you go about it? What steps do you take? What features do you usally try to incorporate? Do you prefer straight CSS or do you bust open Photoshop?

Aaron

1) Before anything:

- talk to client
- research competition

2) Pen & Paper:

- list out important features necessary
- spell out some words & phrases relating to the target audience
- do a sketch of some 'blocks' of where the nav and features will be

3) Photoshop:

- logo / identity design
- mockup of header / front page

I usually start out by drawing it on paper in school, with notes on how I want things done. Then I'll take it home, scan it in the computer n make a rough outline in photoshop then work from that adding n changing what I want to make it how I want it to look.

IMO You guys really need to start talking about such things on vBT and NOT vB.org

I see little problem with design discussion here. :rolleyes:

I'm personally fond of using Adobe Photoshop for the heart of the style, i.e. the header, footer, home and forum main page of a site.

Then just translate the design into HTML and CSS. It beats the hell out of stressing over how things should look when going at it in a text editor, with no real visual conception of how you want things to be.

Criteria I regard of most importance for any style (in no particular order):

• Mobility - how easy is it to navigate. Cluttery navbars or irregularly placed links are the worst yet most common thing I view on the web, and it's no surprise at times when portals holster most of them. When people go to a new website, it's fact that the first place they look is at the top of the page (it is where the logo is), so place your navigation/feature links at the top. (e.g. weather.com)
• Readability - small fonts look nice on techy sites, or those where the target audience is young, but stay away from using them on professional/eBusiness sites.
• Contrast / Colors - designs of Monochromatic or Analogous schemes seem to work best. If you're going with monochromatic, don't be too close on hues, or you might develop a style like deviantART (although I greatly respect deviantART for its content, the color scheme has been bugging me for years).
• Breathability - Another irritating design flaw that makes sites too compact. Not compact as in gamespot.com, which although things appear close together, the balance of colors and spacing between tables makes things look more spacious. A design like SitePoint.com really captures the roomy design. A style like artician looks nice, with a good blend of colors, but text and tables seem to compact. For a techy look, it does good, but could prove better. Another negative example are some portal systems, such as those for vBulletin, where the padding of tables is too close and the page seems scrunched.
• Stature - I define this style that means business, (it looks determined and professional). This includes not just aesthetics, but your HTML should also be very clean. Too many examples out there: microsoft.com, cafepress.com, or dubtastic.com. Obviously these sites are of high quality, but if you practice enough you'll come to understand that it really isn't that hard to do such (given you have the time).
• Respect - don't rip other styles. It's known we all at one point or another will look at another style and try to copy design elements of it, which is fine, but copying the entire HTML, or even a significant portion of its unique style, and then making changes just isn't the way to go (e.g. voidix looks a bit PHPbb'sh. Show some innovativeness. You'll improve your experience if you do the coding yourself, anyway.

Some of my recommendations. If I can think of more, I'll post. ;)

totaly over looked my comment mike >.>

Zachery,

Why is this not the place to discuss these things? That makes no sense at all. It's part of creating the forum...

VeloCD, great insight.

Aaron

Because this discussion would be much better held at a forum related to its topic, this is somthing vBT is really missing, active discussion about things relevant to the site.

So why does vb.org care about vbT? I mean I say that facetiously, but seriously. vb.org's existance is not for the purpose of making sure vbT has traffic. I'm a member of vb.org not of vbT, therefore my related topic was posted here, not there. It's not irrelevant to what is discussed here and so shouldn't be treated as a red headed step child of vb.org. Know what I mean? ;)

vBT is one of the sister sites and it provides styles and template modifcations to vBulletin, one if its current problems is lack of community contirubtion, and your part of the problem, I CARE, vB.org is for HACKING AND CODE, as in PHP SOURCE CODE, mofication, not for style modifcation.

So it's agreed then. I'll keep posting my contributions here and you feel free to populate vbT. I don't want to go to another site. Sorry, dude. I see no basis for your argument.

vB.org == PHP
vB.org != Templates / Style
it cant be much clearer

I have never known those lines to be drawn in my two years here. I'm not the most active member around but hey, it's whatever, man. I don't really feel like arguing about it.

Sorry Zachery, it is up to the staff to decide which threads are allowed here and not, but thank you for making a suggestion. However, this is the lounge, and a random chit chat like this about any topic fits in here perfectly. I really don't see the issue here.

Hey Zachery,

Can we get this threead moved to vbT, please? It has nothing to do with PHP. It's all about styles. Thanks, mate.

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=63176

Aaron

Aren't there more important things to worry about then having to argue over petty things?

Okay, technically template and style questions should be at vBulletintemplates.com.... Why? I don't know but that is how it is currently.

Hacks and PHP modifications to the code should be discussed here.

Now, it might be better to merge the two sites in the long run as it does make it difficult for the customers and even I do not know why there are two sites, except maybe to make management more difficult. How this will proceed in the future, I have no idea right now. But until something happens please respect the boundaries created at this time.

Wasn't it like that at one time?
Having mods and styles split to different sites isn't the ideal situation. Would make for a better user experience if everything was in one place.

Maybe this would be the way to go. I feel very sorry for vbT because the site´s looking great and the mods are always there for help.

I would say that i post rather on vb.com when i have a question about templates than on vbT because there are also users that can help out. Giving a breath to vbT mods. But Zach´s there also :wink:, so it wouldn´t make such a difference to merge the two.

IMHO vb.com has 1 big point that vbT doesn´t have: member/mod activeness. I somethng like " vBulletin 3 Quick Tips and Customizations" on vb.com would have happened on vbT because i really like that site.

Another possibility of forum merge would be a forum link.

Thas just my 2 cents but i really wish that templates modifications (also for the members) will be more easy and rich in future.

Isn't it true that some custom styles may involve a certain amount of php depending on the scope of the project?

not necessarily. what do you think of?

Style modifications should never involve PHP coding. In fact, you can do many "hacks" from vBulletin 2 as simply template modifications now.

I'd respectfully disagree with this. Often my styles will have extra dynamic bits in the header that do require PHP coding-- whether it goes in global.php or the php_include or a template conditional, it is still PHP coding for the style.

Well what I do, is since I can't really get a scanner right now, I start out with a look in Photoshop. Although I'm naughty and hate 800 x 600 so I usually make 1024 x 768 only skins :S. Either way, I get the main forum look. Then I usually take the look of the forum display and redo it but keeping it same to an extent, and then making the postbit out of it. After that I send it to Abed to be coded, yes it does cost depending lol. Then we look over it for little bugs, and after that, I do all of the icons. (I hate doing the icons, but yes they have to be done :S)