Site Skins
Dec 9, 2012 11:57:56 GMT -6
Post by Elenaphant on Dec 9, 2012 11:57:56 GMT -6
Hey there! While I have the title of Skin Queen (what an oddly creepy title mwuahaha), I was thinking to put this up as a board for skin requests and modifications. Aly or Kenni or one of our upcoming admins can all chime in with their thoughts on this (and you can too!) but I think as far as OCs go one per person. If the site expands, I don't know what the limit on skins are (we'll be testing it) but I wanna see how far we can take the look and custom qualities of the site, and I think it is indeed a neat feature that members can have some privilege of choosing what they want skins to look like. I was also thinking that it doesn't have to be limited to characters but a theme too, like friendship or romance or drama or something I dunno, just throwing that out there. Again, chime in with your thoughts. XD
The way I do it is if it's your character, like let's use Batgirl as an example, I would be asking more for Aly's opinion since I assume that she'd be the one most likely to use it and it represents her character--though of course nothing stops anyone from chiming in suggestions especially if I've made some glaring problems in my choice that for whatever reason I did not notice >.>
When it comes to design choice I tend to keep the background for posts and categories consistent, as in dark grey (specifically, font colour 151515) because of our main template (there are some things that I can't modify with it so I have to work around it), but more specifically because of the fact we colour our fonts. That way, no matter what skin someone chooses, you know what your colour choice looks like on their screen more or less. That, and the reason I choose dark grey and not black 000000 is because it's easier on the eyes, and it allows for a greater range in font options--even black (though it would probably need to be bolded plus some screens are set on darker). I instead play with link and highlight colours, while fonts are either white or in some sort of pale shade variety again, out of consideration for personal font colour choices. I want to hear your opinion on this, and if you would prefer some other shade of grey (omg I though of that stupid book hahah) then please tell me the html code or simply chime in with "a bit lighter" or what have you and we can certainly test it out on a tester skin.
html-color-codes.info/
This is the site I use for my html choices. I like it because it has the quick and easy click options which are a nice range, and a more custom adjuster that you can actually input html code and see the colour and adjust from there. If you're requesting mods or a new skin and you have some kind of colour scheme in mind html codes help me be specific to your taste, but if you just tell me like a few colours then that's fine too! Keep in mind that if you do suggest a few colours with specific html limitations on skin mods and the way it actually appears (like say as a highlight) can actually interfere and clash with other font colours (like say link, which looks nice on the dark grey but when highlighted makes eyes squint) and I might fiddle around with the shades. Again, I'll be talking to you about it and if you catch me in cbox that's the easiest.
I tend to use BIG background images for the background. You can tell me generic "red" or "flame" or "dark" or "cute" and I will look for what I can find, but if you want to look for one yourself try to make sure it is big enough that it doesn't repeat on your screen. What I do in google is under search tools I click "any size" and to go "larger than" and then "2mb" to avoid the repeating problem. If you know a better method, as I've encountered problems with this way (only part of the image appearing sine it is sooo big, sometimes the part I don't like) please let me know! But yeah. Also remember that part of the background image is blocked by the middle portion, so if there are certain designs, characters or elements that are centrally located that you really like they probably won't show up and it's a shame. If it is more to the sides, for example on Speedy's skin, and a bit on Sapphire's skin, and on Keaira's skin, then it will show up and can have a neat effect (like Speedy glowering at you as you write your post heh).
I suppose a nice little template to organize things for requests would be nice. You don't really have to, I've made do, but roughly here it is
Character/Concept:
Theme: Dark, light, happy, techno, some descriptions for my designin'
Colour Scheme?: Tell me a few colours you want me to work with
Background Image/Colour?: What do you want your bg to look like?
Logo Image?: Is there a specific logo you want me to use? Try to have it more horizontal as an image
Font colour?: Between white and pale shades please, though see Raven's skin for an example of how a not-FFFFFF (pure white) font comes out
Link colour?: This is for the text you click
Title colour and font?: This is the one at the top of the screen and also what can affect gradient choices with the next option
Category colour?: The categories on the front page and what changes the colours of the "Staff" "Otm" etc on the side bars NOTE THAT FOR WHATEVER REASON YOU CAN'T ADJUST THE FONT COLOUR SO MAKE SURE IT WORKS WITH A REALLY WEIRD GREY. Ugh. This is one of those "template says no you can't" interference and I have no idea why. With gradient option the colour combines with the title choice for more of a "pop" effect so that's something to keep in mind
Highlight colour?: This is for boards and threads, you may notice as you scroll over a board or thread it highlights to a different colour. Note you should take text and link colours into consideration when/if picking.
Yeah, this is just optional when requesting and you don't need to be specific or include all of them, this is just for the ones who want more control or specifics to work with. :3 Soyeah. I think I wrote enough for one post on this XD
The way I do it is if it's your character, like let's use Batgirl as an example, I would be asking more for Aly's opinion since I assume that she'd be the one most likely to use it and it represents her character--though of course nothing stops anyone from chiming in suggestions especially if I've made some glaring problems in my choice that for whatever reason I did not notice >.>
When it comes to design choice I tend to keep the background for posts and categories consistent, as in dark grey (specifically, font colour 151515) because of our main template (there are some things that I can't modify with it so I have to work around it), but more specifically because of the fact we colour our fonts. That way, no matter what skin someone chooses, you know what your colour choice looks like on their screen more or less. That, and the reason I choose dark grey and not black 000000 is because it's easier on the eyes, and it allows for a greater range in font options--even black (though it would probably need to be bolded plus some screens are set on darker). I instead play with link and highlight colours, while fonts are either white or in some sort of pale shade variety again, out of consideration for personal font colour choices. I want to hear your opinion on this, and if you would prefer some other shade of grey (omg I though of that stupid book hahah) then please tell me the html code or simply chime in with "a bit lighter" or what have you and we can certainly test it out on a tester skin.
html-color-codes.info/
This is the site I use for my html choices. I like it because it has the quick and easy click options which are a nice range, and a more custom adjuster that you can actually input html code and see the colour and adjust from there. If you're requesting mods or a new skin and you have some kind of colour scheme in mind html codes help me be specific to your taste, but if you just tell me like a few colours then that's fine too! Keep in mind that if you do suggest a few colours with specific html limitations on skin mods and the way it actually appears (like say as a highlight) can actually interfere and clash with other font colours (like say link, which looks nice on the dark grey but when highlighted makes eyes squint) and I might fiddle around with the shades. Again, I'll be talking to you about it and if you catch me in cbox that's the easiest.
I tend to use BIG background images for the background. You can tell me generic "red" or "flame" or "dark" or "cute" and I will look for what I can find, but if you want to look for one yourself try to make sure it is big enough that it doesn't repeat on your screen. What I do in google is under search tools I click "any size" and to go "larger than" and then "2mb" to avoid the repeating problem. If you know a better method, as I've encountered problems with this way (only part of the image appearing sine it is sooo big, sometimes the part I don't like) please let me know! But yeah. Also remember that part of the background image is blocked by the middle portion, so if there are certain designs, characters or elements that are centrally located that you really like they probably won't show up and it's a shame. If it is more to the sides, for example on Speedy's skin, and a bit on Sapphire's skin, and on Keaira's skin, then it will show up and can have a neat effect (like Speedy glowering at you as you write your post heh).
I suppose a nice little template to organize things for requests would be nice. You don't really have to, I've made do, but roughly here it is
Character/Concept:
Theme: Dark, light, happy, techno, some descriptions for my designin'
Colour Scheme?: Tell me a few colours you want me to work with
Background Image/Colour?: What do you want your bg to look like?
Logo Image?: Is there a specific logo you want me to use? Try to have it more horizontal as an image
There is a background colour too that can be behind your image to fill up space or compliment. See Starfire's image and the purple for example.
Font colour?: Between white and pale shades please, though see Raven's skin for an example of how a not-FFFFFF (pure white) font comes out
Link colour?: This is for the text you click
Btw you can have a seperate link colour for the ones you visited, for more variety, in general I keep both visited and link colour the same
Title colour and font?: This is the one at the top of the screen and also what can affect gradient choices with the next option
Category colour?: The categories on the front page and what changes the colours of the "Staff" "Otm" etc on the side bars NOTE THAT FOR WHATEVER REASON YOU CAN'T ADJUST THE FONT COLOUR SO MAKE SURE IT WORKS WITH A REALLY WEIRD GREY. Ugh. This is one of those "template says no you can't" interference and I have no idea why. With gradient option the colour combines with the title choice for more of a "pop" effect so that's something to keep in mind
Highlight colour?: This is for boards and threads, you may notice as you scroll over a board or thread it highlights to a different colour. Note you should take text and link colours into consideration when/if picking.
Yeah, this is just optional when requesting and you don't need to be specific or include all of them, this is just for the ones who want more control or specifics to work with. :3 Soyeah. I think I wrote enough for one post on this XD