New Fretboard banner

hotpot

Nice job on the new header design.

Kebabkid

That would look cracking on a t-shirt.

Nice one!

vale

hotpot said:

Nice job on the new header design.

hey hotpot, how did you get your dark background? is that your browser or a site preference?
i use a mid-tone raspberry background for word etc (special) but would be nice here too.

Jalapeno

Needs more jam !

digitalscream

You feckin' weirdo (not least because you're using Unity...GNOME, man, GNOME!!!!)

Seriously, though, I'll bear it in mind the next time I do tweaks - I'll convert the image background to transparent (the Guitar Show banner will have gone by then).

digitalscream

Also...I've been wondering if we should bring the brightness down on the background. It would be a fair bit of work, given that there are a lot of faded greys in the design, so everything would need darkening a bit. I might even look into the possibility of having an alternate "night time" theme which you could choose in your profile, but I haven't got the first clue how to do that yet.

Troy

Looks great

notanon

Nice!

ICBM

Am I the only one who hates it?

Oh well...

Jalapeno

digitalscream said:

Also...I've been wondering if we should bring the brightness down on the background. It would be a fair bit of work, given that there are a lot of faded greys in the design, so everything would need darkening a bit. I might even look into the possibility of having an alternate "night time" theme which you could choose in your profile, but I haven't got the first clue how to do that yet.

It is a tad brilliant white tbh

stickyfiddle

ICBM said:

Am I the only one who hates it?

Oh well...

I'm not a huge fan of the actual logo, but I do prefer it to the old one.

digitalscream

ICBM said:

Am I the only one who hates it?

Oh well...

Yup

We actually put out a job spec on freelancer.com (I think), and you should've seen some of the guff we got back. I'm reasonably convinced some of them were just Microsoft clipart.

We just wanted something clear, clean and recognisable so that when we stick it on t-shirts/mugs/calendars etc it's effectively an instantly-recognisable brand. As a bonus, the box on the left gives us an icon too.

Can't please everyone, but we seem to have pleased most people

ICBM

digitalscream said:

We actually put out a job spec on freelancer.com (I think)

Well at least it wasn't one of you .

It's awful.

The 'guitar' logo itself is vile, it looks like something a marketing consultant would have come up with in the 1990s to make a boring old music company seem fresh and trendy. I know this is personal taste, but the 'body' shape reminds me of a Knaggs, which is almost everything I detest about electric guitars… and an angled pointy headstock is the rest. The 'fretboard' font doesn't go with it, the angled e is irritating, and to cap it all the '.co.uk' shoved under the far end makes the whole thing look tilted and off-kilter.

Its actually so hard on my eyes that I have to quickly scroll it up out of the way. Thankfully I can't see it on my phone…

digitalscream said:

(the Guitar Show banner will have gone by then).

That's a shame, because it's by far the best-looking part of it.

Dopesick

Still amazed that the OP can navigate the site in those colours. I'd be sick after a while.

Yeah, a transparent PNG logo is the way to go - and optional themes would be a good idea (not that I'd stop using the current one - black text on light background is always best).

IvisonGuitars

ICBM said:

digitalscream said:

We actually put out a job spec on freelancer.com (I think)

Well at least it wasn't one of you .

It's awful.

The 'guitar' logo itself is vile, it looks like something a marketing consultant would have come up with in the 1990s to make a boring old music company seem fresh and trendy. I know this is personal taste, but the 'body' shape reminds me of a Knaggs, which is almost everything I detest about electric guitars… and an angled pointy headstock is the rest. The 'fretboard' font doesn't go with it, the angled e is irritating, and to cap it all the '.co.uk' shoved under the far end makes the whole thing look tilted and off-kilter.

Its actually so hard on my eyes that I have to quickly scroll it up out of the way. Thankfully I can't see it on my phone…

digitalscream said:

(the Guitar Show banner will have gone by then).

That's a shame, because it's by far the best-looking part of it.

Why don't you see if you can come up with something more presentable then?

hotpot

vale said:

hotpot said:

Nice job on the new header design.

hey hotpot, how did you get your dark background? is that your browser or a site preference?
i use a mid-tone raspberry background for word etc (special) but would be nice here too.

I use an add on with firefox called 'colour that site'. I have to change the white background colour on this site (a few others too) because looking at it on my 30" monitor is like looking into a searchlight.

I have three other PC's with different colour schemes for this site.

digitalscream

hotpot said:

vale said:

hotpot said:

Nice job on the new header design.

hey hotpot, how did you get your dark background? is that your browser or a site preference?
i use a mid-tone raspberry background for word etc (special) but would be nice here too.

I use an add on with firefox called 'colour that site'. I have to change the white background colour on this site (a few others too) because looking at it on my 30" monitor is like looking into a searchlight.

I have three other PC's with different colour schemes for this site.

I get around it a different way - I use Redshift to automatically alter the colour balance of my monitor throughout the day.

ICBM

miserneil said:

Why don't you see if you can come up with something more presentable then?

I'll have a go. I'm not really a graphics person so it may need actually realising by someone who knows what they're doing.

I liked the old banner MUCH better, although I can see that it was possibly a bit busy and heavy-looking.

How about something that's a better play on 'Fretboard'? It occured to me that Fretboard has nine letters, which is the same as the traditional number of position markers on a guitar fretboard…

JezWynd

ICBM said:

Am I the only one who hates it?

Oh well...

I don't like it but I'll guess I'll get used to it. It seems overly fussy - different font colours, too much art (it would be much improved if you did away with the icon thingy on the left). Simple is beautiful.

DLM

miserneil said:

Why don't you see if you can come up with something more presentable then?

My goodness, that old chestnut, seriously?

"Yngwie Malmsteen is shit!"

"I suppose you can shred faster, then?"

"Laura Cox is sooo ugly, wouldn't touch her with yours, mate!"

"So you're married to a supermodel?"

ICBM said:
How about something that's a better play on 'Fretboard'? It occured to me that Fretboard has nine letters, which is the same as the traditional number of position markers on a guitar fretboard…

Wicked!

So, Becker:

http://www.guitars.ru/05/ax/becker.jpg

Or Tufnel?

http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/sZIAAOSwx-9WyRgA/s-l1600.jpg

Two of my favourite guitars ever.

digitalscream

ICBM said:

miserneil said:

Why don't you see if you can come up with something more presentable then?

I'll have a go. I'm not really a graphics person so it may need actually realising by someone who knows what they're doing.

Honestly...and without wishing to sound too blunt about it...that would likely be a waste of your time. We've already got the materials printed for the show (stand candy, t-shirts, cards, flyers etc), so it's here to stay for the foreseeable future. Having that material out there and a totally different logo on the site is exactly what we're trying to avoid. The timing of the change is not an accident

With that said, I'm (personally) not totally averse to @JezWynd's idea of using the box on the side as the icon only and removing it from the header. We'll probably have a chat about that behind the curtain.