Possible New Look for Wolfe's Lair

[Night Ω Wolfe]

So I mentioned in another thread that I had created a new look for Wolfe's Lair and I was hoping to get opinions from all of you guys...

The plan is to have the home page be just a portal to either the Sacred Underworld site or the Sacred 2 site. When you enter Sacred Underworld you will see one template:



Now if you enter Sacred 2 it is the exact opposite:



Last note: In S1 the menu buttons turn from black to cream when you hover the mouse over them and in S2 they turn from cream to black...

So what do you all think?

[griffman]

I definitely like the new stuff. Is there a reason as to why they are opposites? I'm not saying I don't like the idea, but I just want to know the reasoning behind why it needs to be different.

[celtickyrie]

I too like the new look Wolfe.

[Night Ω Wolfe]

Thanks guys.

I wanted them different to make them stand out from one another... to help reduce people forgetting which site they are on.

[AREA666]

I like the new banner, with the two sera, and I assume the black and cream to be something for good and evil maybe, and overall I think it looks clean.

I do not like the cream color though, it might be just a personal thing though. It seems too bright to me, kind of makes me want to squint here in the semi dark. Since there is black and all it seems that colors with a darker hue to them from a basic red, blue, green, or purple work well, sometimes orange as well. If you want to keep the cream, and since it is basically white, I would say any color would go well, so long as it has a lighter hue to it as well so as to not contrast so much.

[Night Ω Wolfe]

AREA - you totally lost me there.... All I understood was that you didn't like the cream...

[griffman]

Haha! From what I got, he's saying that there is too much of a color difference. He thinks either that the black should be a lighter color, or the cream should be a darker color. AKA he doesn't want to be blinded by half of your site when he logs on.

I had somewhat the same response when I first checked it out, but it was about the red links on the cream. At first I thought they weren't showing up well, but then I realized my monitor wasn't tilted at an optimal angle and it was impairing the vision.

[AREA666]

Basically as Griff said Wolfe, the colors contrast too much, rather than complimenting each-other.

[Night Ω Wolfe]

Oh crap... well that was sorta the whole idea.

1. To make the Sacred 1 site stand out much more from the Sacred 2 site.
2. Because I have had tons of people say they really like sites in black or really dark colors and a ton of others that prefer much lighter colors... so this way everyone has their preference on part of the site at least.
3. To make the differences stand out in the banner more.... and I love how it came out!

Is it really all that bad? Color suggestions?

[AREA666]

Ok, so is the color scheme you have setup on that page going to follow through to the other sites then? Or is one going to be dark and the other light? I think you are going for the same two colors in both though, but with things switched around some.

It is hard to explain what is going on though, but using black, or white, can sometimes make things hard, especially when the two are used together.

What you can try to do is use complimentary colors, since they go well together. An explanation of them is here...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complementary_color

But basically you use colors that are opposite to eachother and they will go together well. That is in contrast to using colors that are next to eachother which will kind of fight to exist in the same area. That can be neat though as well since sometimes if there is enough the edges of the colors will almost start to move as your brain gets confused.

That confusion is kind of what is going on with the black and cream. They do go good together, but they are also almost direct opposites. If you try other colors then look at them in a room only lit by the computer monitor at night since you can see more easily how things will go with eachother, and that is how some people will be going to your site.

With the main page there, how is it you plan to let people choose to go to S1 or 2? Like will there be a button for each they will highlight and the theme changes? I figure if something like that is the case then you could also have the banner switch its colors since that would be neat I think.

I am probably being confusing here again though. But basically I am saying the layout and all that is fine, so there is no need to do drastic changes, I just feel the colors do not work as well together as they could, but maybe I am being too critical after having my art class.

[AREA666]

Another thought, do you have any of the new theme uploaded that I can look at full screen? It does not have to be working, but I was thinking that maybe the color difference may not be as great as I thought since when you open the links up with the image site there is A LOT of white in it, so maybe that is why I think it is too bright and you are confused.

[Night Ω Wolfe]

I wonder if it is the way it looks on my computer vs. the way it looks on yours... For instance I recently got hired to do a website for a business... One of the things I did was to have a logo really large and mostly transparent as the background image, on my computer it is like the ghost of an image that breaks up the white background (toning it down) but is so light that it doesn't intrude on the content at all. But then I saw it on his computer and the image appears much darker, although he LOVED it I would have hated it that dark. The other thing is there was another logo and beneath the logo was the business name, the background below the logo and behind the text should have been transparent but I made it white in order to have the image be a higher quality jpg file. On my computer it pretty much entirely blended into the mostly white background and you really had to look to see the white where it shouldn't have been. On his computer however the white GLOWED so dang bright that it looked horrible so I had to trade that image for a slightly less quality gif...

So anyway I uploaded a few files so you guys can see the real deal...

The first page when you click on the site will be the portal between the "two" sites: HERE

When you enter the Sacred Underworld site the layout looks like THIS (I just realized after uploading it that the formatting is a tad off, and extra space at the very top of the page and the table border looks different and it shouldn't, argh)

When you enter the Sacred 2 site the layout looks like THIS

So you misunderstood, it isn't light and dark, it is just a color theme that could easily be reversed to be different on the S1 and S2 sites.

[griffman]

Ok I really got to see AREA's point when you have them uploaded to gamespy. Your eyes have to adjust to the dark and the light each time you switch views. Like, if you look at the dark background and read some info there, your eyes adjust. Then you look down and your eyes have to readjust. I think it might be better either to have one color background, separate for each S1 and S2 site, or to have the colors like AREA has been describing. Plus if you do it with one solid color background for each it will be a lot less difficult to figure out if you're on S1 or S2.... "Dang so was it black on top for S2?" *scratches head*


However, I like the idea on the Main Page. I think you can incorporate the colors well that way, when the entire background is one color and you have a smaller area that is complete opposite. If you go with the solid colors then you can keep the background of the main page for each option. Jesus this is hard to explain without going and drawing out pictures. For instance, in your Main Page example you have S1's background with cream, so you could keep cream color for S1. S2's is in black, could keep black for S2.

[AREA666]

Ok, in full screen, and with a black background, it is not as bright, but as always, I have a few ideas. I agree with griff that the main page looks good where you would choose the game, but I would say that you could either swap the location for the S1 and 2 sides, or swap the colors in the banner, this would give a checkerboard like effect, although you may be trying to line up the colors with their respective theme, so that could be out. the underworld page is fine, but on the S2 one when the cream color comes around the banner it seems to overpower the black, and I think you are going for a more black theme for that one.

Another thing I may have asked and forgot on is with the banner in general, could it switch between two completly different ones? Like on the portal page, you keep the one you have now, but maybe when you move over one of the buttons to go to a game it would change to a different banner that would be up there for the theme. So for S1 it could have all of the character for it or something and say Underworld on it, and then nobody would be confused at all as Griff was talking about with the color scheme.

[Night Ω Wolfe]

@area: Yes I could have different banners, in fact I have toyed with the idea on and off since S2 info. started being released. I even tried it once. But there are a few problems with that IMO.

1. You end up having to make 3 banners: one each for the portal between games, the S1 section and the S2 section. Which then means you have to come up with 3 page template/themes which colors look good with its banner.
2. I always end up really loving the look of one banner more than the others which make the others look crappy in comparison.

As for the current themes I totally get all the points you guys made. However I really like the look of how I set it up...

color1	color2	color1
color1	color1	color1
color1	color2	color1
color1	color1	color1
color1	color2	color1

I don't really care what the colors are, I just like the look of having a solid background and then having the center table with all the info. alternate colors per section to break up the sections. Banner with one color, buttons with the second color, ad banner with the first color, main section with the second and header with the first again...

So are there particular colors that you guys think would look better together overall?

Oh I just came up with a possible idea for the banner! I could keep the portal page one like it is (except change the colors to whatever we decide will look better). Then on the S1 page remove the S2 sera on the right and move the "Wolfe's Lair" over to that position and have the background solid to whatever color we picked to be behind the S1 sera. Then reverse that for the S2 banner... did that make sense?