kawaiiNation finally upgraded

[rin]

Hello,

please check out my recently upgraded community.
I have updated the style and added deleted some forums.
I changed the permission system and hope I can control the spam problem on my forums...
Thanks for your review.

http://www.kawaiination.com/community

[Shelley_c]

Overall I'm not to keen on the style.

At first glance the logo needs to be more prominant. Usually, This will be the first thing visitors will look at and I would suggest that you make the logo more prominant. I noticed it falls short (width wise), maybe have it expanding to the full width of the forum? maybe. In anycase, a re-design of the logo is defenitely required.

The nav menu looks nice, it would look better if expanded and possibly the text replaced for some kind of image base and then the icons implemented upon the base. It looks a little crammed and could do with some spacing. I would personally remove the tables.

This could be down to preference but the scanlines/patterns inside the gradients aren't something I would implement. I find when scrolling scanlines seem to play tricks on your eyes and enduce (well for me) a trip to the toilet.

I would also keep the text sizes consistent. For example, the introduce forum text looks to large and viewing the rest the text in each forum is large and the forum text underneath is small which seems to repeat itself throughout. Giving the forum a little consistency would hurt and the text (for me) really throws everything off.

It's not a great look but I'd be lieing if I said it looked great. Looking at the whole style a 30 minute overhaul of the areas I mentioned would give things a nice turn for the better and at the same time give the style the consistency that it's lacking.

I would also replace the vb stock images with custom variations. I would suggest that you take a look at the vb.org graphic database, there's plenty of good stuff there that would compliment your style if you don't mind using other peoples creations.

Goodluck with your forum.

[rin]

Thanks Shelley_c for your very detailed critics.
1. The banner will be replaced. We may have some kind of member contest going on later where members can send in their own creations and the best one wins.
2. I already tried the variation of expanding the navbar 100%. It did look really bad. Maybe there is a way to make it look good on full size, but I am already quite satisfied with how it looks now.
3. Many people at first told me, no the text can't be like this. It looks bad etc. But once gotten used to it, its also quite useful. Because the big text stresses the more popular and more important forums. While forums that are actually just additional to the forum are being small texted. It makes it the forums most people are looking for easier to find etc. Gotten used to it, many people of my community would prefer it to be with big letters. Its more eye catchy. Though I have to admit that at first sight, I also was not sure if this is a good idea or not.
4. Yes, I will take a look here if I can find something with that I could replace the stock images. Thanks for your time responding to my review request.

[rin]

Anyone else had a look? I have changed the different sizes for the forum names..

[Princeton]

it's a good start; however..

Currently, the only thing that stands out are the icons at the top. The icons have a lot of color and draws attention to it.

The header ... arrgghhh, it should be replaced.

1. it's dull
2. it's too big
3. no contrast ... your logo should stand out .. people visiting your site should REMEMBER your logo

The gradients ... it's a little confusing having lines going left-right and right-left. For now, I recommend a lighter hue on the lines (not as visible).

[Shelley_c]

If your using photoshop to design those gradients and still prefer to keep the scanlines on the gradient I would recommened you set the scanline layer (or if it's attached via the pattern feature) set it to a Blending mode - soft light at a low opacity. I find (in the past when I implemented scanlines/patterns) that this gives off a nice subtle effect.