Need Help Deciding On A Design For My Site So many choices, not enough time to do them all.

[SileZigns 0]

First of, I am not sure if this is meant to be here or in the web design, as it's about web templates, but aren't actually on or to do with the net yet.


Ok, I have made a web template, it red, its for my site silezigns. (my username is not my normal one)

I made one, but have been asking people what colour would look the best, and I have had mixed results, so I am posting it here to see of I can get a final result, and is majorly holding me up.

Their are six colour options and their is a seperate link to each of them, they are all 800 x 600, and are exactly the same except the colour. (If you have slow internet I would advise to avoid this topic)

Here are your options:
The Red Layout
The Green Layout
The Purple Layout
The Blue Layout
The Navy Blue Layout
The Gold Layout


Please help me out, this is really starting to get on my nerves...
P.S. Please DO NOT suggest letting the user have the option of choosing the colour, it makes it quite difficult on me.

P.S.S. Your opinion would be greatly appreciated.

P.S.S.S. I'm sorry if this is in the wrong place.

[twitch 0]

I'll leave it here whilst it's in the design stages, once you get to developing it, then further posts will be put into the Web Design forum.

 

What I think is that you've over-done the graphics. If you think about it, when you export all of your sliced images and start developing it, the size is going to be humongous, which results in a slow load, and almost no-load for limited connections. So what I would propose is (for all of them):

Where the main content is going, have a block of a single colour. Using various harmonious colours can be very eye-candy and helps load times, because it can be done straight through CSS.

Of the colours you have so far, they are too dark. You might be into the whole dark theme, and I quite like it, but when you're trying to keep visitors coming to your site, you need to make it so that they can read things without getting eye-strain. This can be caused when light foregrounds are resting on darker backgrounds. In this case, light text on a dark and heavy background colour.

You're probably best straying away from using one colour. From past experience, it hardly ever works and looks quite amateurish.

However, out of the styles you have made, I would rather visit the blue one. Simply because I like blue

 

 

--mik

 

P.S. I think you should add a poll, with the links to the images in the poll (e.g. [ url=http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/404.png ]The Gold Layout[ /url ] )

[finaldesign1405241487 0]

Ok, first of all, you can go with 2-color option. I would go with red/gold. But keep in mind that colors should not be too vivid, because it will dominate then too much and content would not get enough attention to a viewers eye. Anyway, make that top-bars in your webpage boxes red and all backgrounds gold scheme... you could do this very easy, in photoshop just mix these 2 color flatened layers and delete what you don't need... let me know if you have any questions regarding photoshop Anyway, lets take colors to side now, and look at general overview:---> you should think a way of coloring text, it would be a bit hard to read on those backgrounds... Black/white combination works best, and contrasted colors are best..---> if would be best to put this layout on center of webpage, so it's always on center regarding size of windowanyway, I hope to see this soon online, and filled with some content

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

If you really want to use one of those, I would say red. But I agree with twitchy that it looks like it'll be a bit image heavy and toning it down some would be useful.I disagree, however, that having a dark background can cause eyestrain... if you think about it as long as there is contrast between the letters/background you should be fine. Whenever I'm coding I set my color schemes to a white text on black background because there is less light being forced itno my eyes, thus less eye strain But maybe I'm odd like that...

[yordan 10]

I set my color schemes to a white text on black background because there is less light being forced itno my eyes, thus less eye strain

That's a nice point. And precisely this point shows that the present topic should not exist.
You are simply explaining that you prefer white text on black background because your own eyes like it. And other people explain that this choice is really bad from their point of view.
So, there is no real way of knowing which colours have to be set. The only thing you can do is ask a pannel of peple "do you like this ?" And you will be surprised how different the answers will be.
It's exactly the same thing as when choosing sun glasses. Some people like green sun glasses. They will tell you "green is very nice because your eyes like it". And I hat green sunglasses, they harm my eyes. I love brown sun glasses, I feel them comfortable.
Some years ago, people had green background on their terminals, they found them comfortable. Some other people hated this, they loved amber background terminals, they found them quietful.
And now you can freely choose your background. when I choose the ones I love, other people say "Oh, it's ugly !" And when they show me what they like, I feel it very harmful for my eyes.
The only real way to do this would be to ask yourself the question : how many people like this kind of background, how many users will hate my website if I put that background ?
This is really a nice question, because it's partly physics (wavelenght interacting with your eyes), partly biology (some eyes have defects in some ranges), partly philosophy (green means love) and partly marketing (what message do I want to express ? If I want people to be angry because of my enemies I will choose a red background).

[twitch 0]

I thought RED meant love...Anyway, I agree mostly with what yordan has said, especially the marketing aspect.But if this is going to be a personal page, then I suggest you go with a colour scheme THAT YOU LIKE. Sometimes, we need to put aside what others will think and go with our gut instincts. I know this may be hard for some, but it will eventually prove useful, unless you have no heart.I wouldn't go for a red/gold scheme, but as yordan pointed out, it's like sunglasses.As for no-real point in this topic, is there any point in any topic when it boils down to it? I think you were going over-board a little on that one.