Afther watching all the people trying to make a Elysiun redesign or colortheme, I decided to make my try. First of all I toke a new colortheme, because people are saying it’s getting old, reminds me from the 80’s and some of them still like it. Well I think Elysiun needs a more proffesional look then it now has. Ok here’s my try on a design.
Here some things:
I didn’t remove the tabs, it’s very usefull, clean and handy
I changes the color theme into futuristic like one.
Added some ideas for a couple of new features, like a poll and stats
Now there’s needed a part time admin to change the website menu’s each couple of days.
a little 2 kbyte tileable grid background for 56k visitors.
forum background won’t be white, but just a dark color, for better reading.
Images needed in layout:
First of all, is still has to be 56k user friendly, so here a list of pictures.
I think when the front page would be online, the user has to load around max 200 kb one time to load all the pictures when saved as gif and indexed.
Banner with logo in it.
the buttons can’t be made like that with tables, so only the 45 degree lines has to be painted, the rest of the tabs is just tables. Maybe the navigation could be made in flash, which will avoid problems making the the navigation in tables like shown in the picture, flash is much more simpler.
The gradients above the menus
Pictures of the news and such
The reason of this bunch of menu’s and new things:
The first impession some friends have had on this layout is, proffesional, much news, almost daily updated, clean and very informall (hope this is the right word).
Anyways, I hope you all like it, it’s a non ripped design, I just got an idea so I didn’t make a screen and rip the layout. c&c are welcome to improve the design.
One thing I like about the current design/server/implentation is how fast it is! elysiun has a nice look while loading super fast. I hope we don’t loose that aspect (too many images for instance)
Very nice mock-up. I think the color scheme is great. I’m glad you kept the navigation tabs. I like the techy graph paper look background.
The only thing I don’t like is the “world blender 3d community”. It needs a little more something. The rest of the design just makes that one part look really lame. Also, I’m wondering about the actual text too. I think 3D is implied - and is not part of the official product name - and is thus unneccessary. Also, instead of “world” how about “official”, as in “The Official Blender Community”. Elysiun is that, right?
z3r0 d: though I like the gray and orange. Is blender 2.32 out yet?
I can try one with grey and orange, but it just needs a different collor, maybe a theme would be nice too, but i don’t know if that’s possible. Blender 2.32 still not out yet.
Modron: That looks great. Do you think you could put my logo in there?
Which logo? you mean the orginal Elysiun logo?
nuance9: he Official Blender Community
Yeah I didn’t know what I should put there, so I just typed something. But I try that.
Ok I’ll work on a orange/grey theme, and a forum design to see how the forum has to look like. I’ll also mark the places where pictures are needed, but for so far, the pictures won’t take too much load time, if you index them into 8 bit (because more then 8 colors arn’t used) you can make them around 5/10 kb each, and the banner around 80kb and the gradients around 20 kb or less. So pictures aren’t the problem.
Well I’m at my work right now, but when I’m back at home, I make some more things and post it.
I voted for “it’s ok” because i think it’s a nice layout and it suites the new blender 2.3* GUI and associated BF website. so i guess that if the elysiun skin has to be updated, it would probably be for the best to do a complete make-over.
I did vote it’s ok since it seams like it isn’t done (just some minor stuff…), and that reliefthingy on 3D looks awful in my opinion.
Except that I think it’s greate that you’re making an dark-on-light theme instead of an light-on-dark. My eyes like it that way But maybe you should be able to choose light-on-dark too since some people prefer it that way…
Edit: One idea is to use colorcoding to make it easier to looka at.
ditto on the nice layout and color scheme. The logo and header need help. I think a photorealistic blender eye with a stylish three eye lashes would be neat. There should be something there that can show what blender can do.
Great, everyone is complaining about the banner. :P, yeah it was just a quick paint and hit effect. But now I’m going to do a serious design for the banner before I continue. Well here it goes.
We need a beautyfull Blender 3D presentation babe. Ofcourse not a real one, but one that shows what blender can do, like the one nividia has. This is not just a request to gain the models for myself, but it’s a chance to get your render on the layout, it’s going to be the real one. So get your old models, or remove the dust of your mouse, and make a hell of a model. Maybe this would be a cool idea for a contest, well even better I’m going to post a topic for this.
Make the logo a tad darker, it glows a bit too much.
Lose the Elysiun stats at the top of the page. At other site I personally never use theses things and they make the site terribly confusing to look at first. The nice thing about Elysiun now is that it just looks so damn clean
Don’t use clear white behind text, it is known to hurt the eyes. Instead, use a very light blue (to match the colorscheme). Example: a site that I made a very long time ago. Notice how the clear white doesn’t feel good at all, while the light gray tone feels almost smooth and relaxing. whatever.
Replace banner text with “Official Blender (artists) community”
Just to see more clearly, I’d like a “Now logged in as JD-multi, <logout>” to the top.
Instead of “<-> login <-> memberlist <->” use “<login> - <memberlist>”
That’s just about it. That’s what I would like to see improved, just small things. Overall very nice and professional design. I hope it gets implemented.
My main complaint wont be the banner, but the color scheme. Carnivore has already commented on white, he is right, but the whole thing is not much better and would be quite agressive on the eye, if viewed often or too long. Other problem, it would conflict with some pictures and WE DONT WANT that.
Dont misunderstand me, the overall design is quite good and I like it, but the background scheme MUST be neutral, both to be pleasant and to enhance rather than damage pictures schown.
IMHO, a good scheme would be light grey (18% photographs would say) with just an hint of colors to give a mood. Blue and grey like in your design can be a good choice as base but neuter it and add a pale hot color to make it happier
We need a beautyfull Blender 3D presentation babe. Ofcourse not a real one, but one that shows what blender can do, like the one nividia has.
And why not a gogo-guy ?
No seriously, a blender babe would be fun, but won’t add anything to the site. A working gallery here (an external site has less impact) would, and as I understand this will be addressed.
Ok I made my last design in this colortheme, next design will be the same, but in orange and grey colors like elysiun is now. So here the last one, the forum sneak peek, not a total forum but just an idea of the colors used in there. also I saw a misspelled word, fap must be faq. :-?
My reactions, nice design, REALLY nice, (imagine having the knowledge base with this template too… wohoo!) anyways… here’s a little petition, could we have a “site-wide” theme option? so we can still have out old and beloved (and what’s more important, LIGHTING FAST!) orange-grey theme… ? be easy on my dial up connection…
I love your new design, i wanna see the orange-grey alternative now
I like it alot, but I don’t like the fuzzy edge on the logo. It doesn’t seem to fit. Also, I would put the whole thing in photoshop and do some slight variations on the tones and colors, though nothing too drastic.
hmm… only thing wrong is the text of the title (remove 3D, make what’s left or just Blender 3d text) and the fuzzy-edged elYsiun logo. Hard edged all the way! Maybe have the blender babe lying down along the bottom of the banner (which would keep the neat looking background in the most recent pic) with her head propped up on her hand with her elbow on the bottom, and the text starting right next to her head (which would of course hav beautiful long hair, preferably dark )(which would be on the left) and just barely overlapping her body. I love the white and grey colors, the graphpaper-like background, the slanted tabs, and everything else. (though maybe you should get rid of the pure white bits; that’s a bit hard on the eyes) I love it!
I don’t want the old elysiun to leave 
But maybe you should be able to choose light-on-dark too since some people prefer it that way…