New.... Budgie Boards
 

Hey whatcha all think of my board: Budgie Boards? This is my first vB and my first time at skinning (I have experience hacking IPB's though :)), so the skin may not be the best. Comments, constructive criticism, and suggestions all welcome! Joining the site is encouraged as well :nervous:. Thanks.

EDIT: In case you don't know, budgie=parakeet ;).

This looks pretty nice. I like the subtle color changes you've made. The only criticism I have is of your page background and the header. It needs a bit more graphical flair IMO :)

Thanks for the comments. I'll work on the background and header. I'm only fair at making graphics but I'll give it another try.

Got to agree with Dean the background needs some work, I got a bit paranoid with them keep looking at me :D

On another note we used to have 17 budgies, the have all gone to budgie heaven now, so now the wife has moved on to Chinchillas, bit of a difference, anyway my point is there are a lot of budgie keepers and breeders out there so with luck your site should become very popular, all the best :)

Wow 17 budgies. Well thanks for the inspiration :D! It seems the background will have to go. I'll work on a new one.

Ouch, LOL..
I do agree the background image has to go. :D

Should there be any type of picture in the background, or just a solid color? Like I said I'm new at skinning and I'm not that creative ;).

Go for either a solid colour or gradient, it would look much better, and also what about a 100% width forum instead of 800px, I just feel it's better to fill your browser, but that is my own taste

I made it 100% width and I made the background a solid color (same as last time but without the birds :p). I wasn't sure how to make a gradient, so I just did solid color. :)

Well I going to attach a gradient background for you but it seem vb.org are have a mysql error.

So go to AdminCP Main CSS and choose either Body or Page Background can't remember which without playing and use something like
#D1D1E1 url(images/yourstyle/gradient_back.gif) repeat-x top left

Get the gradient from here

The fact that you have the registration notice directly stopped me from registering. Offer content, not badgering and nagging to guests (no offense).

You're talking about that popup hack right? I felt like adding that would turn down registration, but I thought I'd give it a try. Now I know not to have it so I removed it. Any other comments?

Nice start. My only comments are the page background, which doesn't seem to match with the greys very well. Possibly try a lighter sky blue color, not as intense as the one you have now. :)

I changed the background and the header image. I just can't seem to get this right :p. How does it look now? Oh yeah, thanks for all the comments and suggestions so far! I hope they all help me attract more members...

Would you mind if I tinker with your logo a bit? I think it needs one bird in it. That background you had was overkill, but I think the site does need a bird graphic or two.

Amy

Sure you can edit it. If you need the .PSD I'll PM it to you or something.

I did this one without a PSD - something quick and dirty to just slip a bird in. But, with a bit more time, I can get you something much nicer to give you some choices. I'm in a photoshop mood lately :D

Thank you for that image. It's pretty nice. I'll attach the .PSD in case you want to use that instead.

The zip has a shortcut to the psd, not the psd itself. ;)

Hmm weird. Lemme try again. See if it works now.

I have two more for you to play with:

Forgot to note, those two are on a transparent background, so you can use whatever background colors you choose.

Wow those are both very good! Thank you very much! I think I'll use the first one as the header image and maybe the second one as an avatar/sig image :p. Thanks again! :D

glad you like them. I had fun making them.

They look nicer than anything I've made :p. It's the overlapping budgie that makes it look really good, in my opinion. The selection of colors and fonts is good also.

it's good to see someone taking criticism well ... and using it to their advantage :up:

TIP: Remove the entire table which surrounds the header image and use this instead:
This will align the header with the layout.

PS. The site looks M U C H better with the changes you have made.

Thank you. And with the last site I tried to make I didn't really listen to people's advice and it failed miserably :p. I've learned from that to take people's advice.