Update 8/9: I’m going live with the new theme now, after making some changes based on the feedback I got here. You’re welcome to keep commenting with suggestions (and bear in mind that I have yet to decide what else to do with the header, so there may be a place for more color up there).
Lest you thought my Twitter comment about revamping the site was an act of impulse, mere offhand rambling, I present to you the basically-finished prototype of Super Fanitheme 3.0, a simplified, cleaned-up affair compared to what we have now. All I need now are thoughts on how it might be made better.
The front page, with image caption formatting
More sections offered for your perusal after the break.
Blockquotes and the bottom of an un-captioned image
Several levels of comments
I’m not sure about how to decorate the header yet, or whether it should be decorated. To that end, I’m thinking of commissioning someone to draw a mascot character, but nothing’s certain yet — after all, I am, in a general sense, entirely broke.
It looks elegant.
I personally find it a bit too spare. I think Superfanitheme should be vibrantly colorful and fun.
Are you going to keep the break buttons as they are in the preview? I think I prefer the old ones — or at least, I would prefer to continue the video game reference. : )
It’s bringing sexyback.
Clean, my only suggestion is the threaded comments vertical border. Lighten that thing up or remove it :) (the vertical lines stand out quite a bit)
All comments noted.
Re: “more” button: the one I was toying with before I replaced it with CSS, which uses the Earthbound font, is here; is that one alright? Or, as per Ghosty’s suggestion, should it be something more colorful?
Speaking of that, the idea is to de-emphasize everything that isn’t a post and its contents. I was planning on going with grays and letting the posts provide the color and eye-catching power in general via screencaps and such. There may be ways to sneak color in, though.
I’ll try doing away with those left borders on the threaded replies, and do something simpler that sets clusters of replies apart at the highest level.
@Owen: That song is stuck in my head now fgsfds
I’m cool with that.
The peril of hasty submitting:
Is there any kind of joke we can run with for the text of the button? If we’re using Earthbound, we could always have them read “Zoom!”
I have the Mr. Saturn font, too. It shall be done.
The Saturn font didn’t really mesh, so I’m going with the Earthbound font. Not sure about “Zoom!” insofar as it isn’t very descriptive, but then I doubt that the people who come across Super Fanicom wouldn’t recognize it as a break button.
Well, what else is in that game? There’s always fuzzy pickles. Or just the traditional “continue.” It’s nice and game-oriented already.
I like it. I will miss being greeted by Yang and his tea, but then minimalism is fancy. I never liked how threaded comments look though, now neither, but I have no real idea how to make it more to my palate, so nevermind.
Considering the mascot is Cuchlanns manly beard, we probably should make a Beard-tan if any mascot character is to appear. Probably a deadpan snarker loli. Which is a beard. Or the beard.
Yesss, if we can work Cuchlann’s beard in somehow…
At the very least, one of the “witty random quotes” at the top should be “By Cuchlann’s beard!”
Or maybe the mascot should be Cuchulainn-tan, complete with inumimi, because anyone who thinks that joke is funny (Cuchulainn = hound of Cuchlann, correct me if I’m wrong someone) probably belongs here.
YES THE BEARD. WITH THE BEARD, NOTHING ELSE IS REQUIRED. IT SIGNIFIES ANYTHING WE COULD POSSIBLY WANT. IT’S VIBRANCE, COLOR, AND MANLINESS ALLOWS US TO DIVIDE BY ZERO.
He’d be like a cross between Inuyasha and Conan! But with red hair and more luck with the ladies.
I feel like he’d look like Owen from CCY17. But manlier, if that’s possible.
Yes, my “beard” in CCY17 would pay annual tribute to Cuchlann’s beard in the form of 50 virgins and 100 fattened calves.
I was in love with my hand-selected yang-sipping-tea banner. :(
on the other hand, we should have something ttgl related…like cuchlann with his arms crossed. WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE??????
Yeah, I just want something more original/personal up there. We could always add “sipping tea” to our list of traits the mascot should have. So then I guess we’d end up with a red-haired bearded tea-sipping loli (shota?) snarker with dog ears and good luck with the ladies…the universe just broke.
ZOOMER!
Also, why loli?
Since all mascots are loli.
Like Wikipe-tan.
SO SHINY!
Considering that this is mostly aesthetic and not structural changes, wouldn’t 2.1 or 1.1.1 be in order? Because we all like convoluted archiving serials…
Well, since it’s always basically been the default WordPress theme rearranged, I guess it’d be 1.3. I just drop the initial 1 and the . and go with the 3. I’m no professional developer, you may notice.
The gravatars look ugly on this theme. Maybe make them larger?
I don’t like gravatars anyway. I just added them to see what it’d look like. Maybe at some point I’ll try formatting them prettily.
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