SKIN CRITIQUE - ELOQUENCE

pronounsShe, Her
128written posts
punkiearned bits
offlinecurrently
punki
Full Member
punki Avatar
all of this mess is just my attempt to know the worth of my life; made of precious metals inside
So the radio silence (in comparison to the last premade I released) is driving me crazy. Check out the live preview here and please give me some feedback if you would. I want to know what's great and what's less-than-mediocre, as well as what's just a plain turn-off and vice versa. Honest opinions pretty please. I CAN TAKE IT.
frog on the floor
aliasfreiheit, microwaved burrito
pronounsany
1,544written posts
pharaoh leapearned bits
offlinecurrently
pharaoh leap
Administrator
pharaoh leap Avatar
i've been having some pretty dark thoughts.
Honestly, I really like this one over the last - not that the last wasn't really pretty, too, just that this one makes my kokoro go doki doki - and I get the feeling the radio silence is less because this one is significantly "worse" than the last so much that the site in general is just a little more... quiet than it was at the time of the other posting. None the less, I'll try to give you my opinions. Feel free to completely disregard these because they might get pretty subjective, sdkjlfhdskjfhdsjk.

First of all, your style is overall really polished and generally pleasing to the eye. You're easily one of my favorite Adox skinners, complete with things that impress me technically as well as visually. The banner here is simple, but beautiful. The rotating images is a really neat touch... although maybe not one ideal for a pre-made over, say, a skin coded with a specific site, or more accurately, person behind that site in mind. Pre-made skins are made with people who aren't usually that used to coding themselves in mind, and while there are definitely some site makers who aren't great with coding but are really good with graphics, I'd say there are probably more who are neither coding nor graphics savvy. Asking the owner to make one banner is already task enough. Asking for multiple may be too much.

The board list remodel doesn't look bad, per say, but it's definitely the thing that sticks out to me the most by looking kind of... out of place? The two main visuals with it are the board image overlapped by the description text box, which you use in the banner toggles, and actually does look pretty cool, but also trapezoidal shapes, which only shows up there and in one singular link (unless it shows up in the user profile, but as a guest, I have no way of seeing that, sorry OTL). As a personal rule, I try to use similar shapes throughout skins because it ads an overarching sense of cohesion. While throwing in an oddball in small amounts isn't guaranteed to look bad, when it's the visual focus of one area and no where else, it can stick out kind of strangely. I don't know whether a good "fix" for this would be to feature more of these trapezoid shapes elsewhere, or to focus more on rectangles with accents of circles like in the banner. Heck, maybe it doesn't even need "fixing" at all and this is super nit picky and personal. Who even knows.

I actually really love your set up for the threads as a whole. The way posts and mini-profiles aren't contained within the wrapper, allowing the background pattern to poke through isn't something you see a whole lot, and when you do, it doesn't usually come off nearly as neat looking as yours! I'm also a sucker for anyone who re-arranges the quote button and thread link area, so hey, man, props to you. <333 My only two gripes with this are the less important detail that, without a "reply to this thread" button, the bottom of the forum cozies up with the bottom of the thread without any of the background peaking through, and the more important detail that the on-hover mini-profile almost just... looks... unfinished? Like, the hover itself makes me drool, it's super nice how it slides over and drops down, but looking at even just the admin account's mini-profile, you can see a lot of dead space, both horizontally and vertically. Image on the top? Nice. Maybe try sprucing up the other information there with different and larger fonts, or by re-arranging them in ways less orthodox than simply being listed top-down.

I feel like I mostly pointed out areas that I could see improvement in, skldjfhksjfhds, SO LEMME WRAP THIS UP WITH SOME STUFF I REALLY LIKED. That nav bar on the side??? I'd die for it. This seems really dumb, and it probably seems like such a small thing, but it's probably my favorite part of the whole skin, like. It's conveniently located? Good functionally? Doesn't take up too much space as a position:fixed object? Nice. The way the login/register buttons curve into the banner look really sleek. All of the banner modal popups are also really sleek - in particular, the staff and awards tabs. *heart eyes*

I love seeing your work around the site, though, and if you're planning to do another pre-made any time soon, I anxiously await its arrival! <333 Good luck with future coding~!
pronounsShe, Her
128written posts
punkiearned bits
offlinecurrently
punki
Full Member
punki Avatar
all of this mess is just my attempt to know the worth of my life; made of precious metals inside
Well, it's nice to know that it's not just me, then, because I'll be the first to say I was pretty sure the quality of this one over the last one was much better, so I was a little worried and mind-boggled. Don't worry, subjective is what I'm looking for. Art is a subjective thing to begin with.

You're probably right on the matter of the rotating banner, although I did try to make it as user-friendly as possible. My general philosophy, on a personal level, is the more graphics, the better, because nothing brings a design to life like some well-chosen pictures. But I understand that not everyone is as persistent and rigorous as I in my quest for good graphics. ^^' If the images in question were smaller, do you think that would make it more premade-friendly?

Not gonna lie, the board list remodel always gets me. I don't even know why. This time it was like pulling teeth, and that's probably why it's not great, because I never went back to redo it. If I were to try and fix it, I would just scrap it and do it over again, probably not including the trapezoidal shapes.

I'm glad you like the thread setup! I'm the sort of person who feels the need to scrap everything and build my own stuff from the ground up, so I hate leaving all those little things untouched. (Main reason why JCINK and I do not agree... So little structure control...) I completely understand what you mean. I tend to try to avoid the possibility of running out of room in miniprofiles, but I think I ended up giving myself too much wiggle room, considering that I had so much info moved over in a horizontal position, and then I didn't want to give up the dimensions for the big image. That's right about where I started rushing myself to finish the whole thing because I really wanted to be done.

IF I'M BEING COMPLETELY HONEST, those modals were my favorite part of the entire thing. <3 I had to worry absolutely not at all about how they would fit into the setup for the entire body of the forum, so it was really easy to just let my mind's eye run wild so there will definitely be more modals.

I low-key started another premade last night because I had the ITCH, although I'm not sure when I'll finish it because I seriously doubt it will get done by the end of this week, and I've got another project that needs to get started around that time. :x I'd be happy to send a screenshot if you wanted a look at it - it's just a mostly-complete header right now. XD

Thank you so much for the feedback! I really do appreciate it. ^^
last edit on Oct 31, 2018 3:51:23 GMT by punki
3,084written posts
Kitten4uearned bits
offlinecurrently
Kitten4u
Part of the Furniture
Kitten4u Avatar
[nospaces]

[attr="class","infoBG"]
[attr="class","infoBG2"]
[attr="class","infoBack"]
[attr="class","infoTitle"][attr="class","fa fa-star-o"] threadarchived
[attr="class","infoDiv"]

[attr="class","infoBody"]

To keep the forum clean and so people know that all threads in certain areas are current and that the OP is likely to still have interest, we archive threads that haven't gotten posts for 2 weeks. This thread is being archived for that reason. If you would like this thread reopened, contact a staff member.