Very Early Critique

[davemcnally]

I apologize in advance for the lack of material here to critique but I am just wondering if you think I am heading a decent direction.

I'm at the early stages of designing my new site and having kind of settled on a colour scheme, I want to know what you guys/gals think.

Is it worth carrying on with etc...

Please click here for preview (http://davemcnally.net/rough_1.jpg)

Thanks :D

[shyflower]

I'm not a big fan of light on dark but I do like your design. However, I would change the light green text to a light gray to make it easier to read. (white on dark is usually just too bright for me!) Try #fofofo and see if you like it. :)

[davemcnally]

Maybe it's my screen...I need a Huey! (http://shop.colourconfidence.com/product.php?xProd=1528&gclid=CN2mgbrHzJACFQEkQgodanHIVw)

Not too keen on the shade of gray but I will definitely look into more options with the contrast. Thanks :)

[ses5909]

I love the design and the colors dave. It is a lot easier to read the green on the brown/burgundy in the recent posts and tweets box. Can you just use that bg color in all of the text boxes?

[davemcnally]

Thanks for the feedback. I could do, I just didn't want to limit the colours too much as working with the current scheme quickly narrows things down a lot.

I'm going to play around with a couple of similar alternatives and if nothing legible crops up, I will consider using the same background colour :)

[davemcnally]

I have since finished up a bit more of the design and altered the light green on the darker background to something which is hopefully more legible. You will have to excuse the quality if its a bit on the low side, I had to crop the image and compress quite a bit since my router went down and I am currently using my HTC as a modem :devilhorns:

Please click here to preview (http://davemcnally.net/rough_2.png)

What do you think? Do the colours need more altering? Thanks :)

[ses5909]

It's actually the body text that is hard for me (in both images). The titles I can read fine, but the body text is harder for me to read. I have to really focus. The color looks the same in the old and new images although I can see the color change in the title.

[davemcnally]

Ah, I thought it was the title text. Is it too bright?

I have now altered the body text to more along the lines of the f0f0f0 suggested.

Is this better? (http://davemcnally.net/rough_4.png)

[ses5909]

It is better. I wonder how it would look with the pistachio text?

[shyflower]

It is legible but is sort of "shimmers" on my LED Screen.

[davemcnally]

hmm pistachio sounds good. will take a look when I get home...no photoshop for windows mobile im afraid!

[davemcnally]

I have changed the featured text again, not too sure on it though. Looks OK on my laptop but is likely to vary on your monitors!

What do you think? (http://davemcnally.net/rough_5.png)

Thanks again xD

[ses5909]

I think the tan looks nice for the text.

[davemcnally]

Cool, I'll leave that be for now then and continue. Afterall, that piece of text is only for the featured section as when viewing the whole post, I'm going to use the same background colour as the recent articles and twitter sections which should help with legibility over larger chunks of text.

[shyflower]

I like it too! Good job Dave! :D

[davemcnally]

Thanks, good job you two! Without whom, I would be left with some unreadable text ;)

[deronsizemore]

Nice design Dave! I see you decided on a dark theme too. I'm going to go with a dark theme myself I think in the next redesign of my blog. I've really started liking them.

As far as a critique goes...on my screen, the brownish color and the black are hard to differentiate on my screen, but that very well could be because of my laptop screen. (I've noticed other colors looking different on my own sites). Other than that, nice simple design!

[davemcnally]

Thanks Deron, I will be using a couple of tools prior to finalizing colors to check for a decent enough level of contrast etc. I'm using a laptop at the moment too and will be checking out finished comps on a couple of monitors...including my dust-covered CRT ;)

[ses5909]

Once the design is done Dave, I'd be happy to use browsercam to take some screenshots for you in multiple browsers. I can make a project public so anyone can access the results.

[davemcnally]

Thanks a lot! :)

Would save me having to wait a while for browser shots to load half a print screen for me ;)

[deronsizemore]

Once the design is done Dave, I'd be happy to use browsercam to take some screenshots for you in multiple browsers. I can make a project public so anyone can access the results.


Oh yeah...I forgot all about that browsercam service. I used it forever ago. :)

I think the last time I used it, it was free. Probably not the case anymore?

[davemcnally]

Oh yeah...I forgot all about that browsercam service. I used it forever ago. :)

I think the last time I used it, it was free. Probably not the case anymore?

Not sure if there's a free service available but I think Sara is using a paid one.

[ses5909]

Yes, I am using a paid version but you can get in on a group purchase for like $25/month. The really cool thing about it is the ability to remote into different servers with different OSs and browsers to actually walk through your entire app.