Quick aesthetic advice wanted

[danaeris]

OK, so here is the prototype of my professional website:
http://danaeris.spidersilk.net

If you maximize your browser screen, on the far right there is a section beneath the header and to the right of the text which is a blue-black-grey, paler than the navigate sidebar on the left and the header.

I initially thought this looked bad. But my talented web designer said she changed it to that because having it the same shade as the header (ie. dark) looked claustrophobic.

So the question is, do I want it:
(1) to stay the way it is
(2) to go dark again
(3) to be the same background colour (cream-like) as the main body text section?

Your opinion is desired! :)

Comments

[delta-november.livejournal.com]

I think it looks okay. I keep my screen at 1920 x 1200, so the text only occupies the top left corner of my screen. Option (3) would make things much too light. Either (1) or (2) is fine -- I can't compare, because I havn't seen it the other way.

[outcastspice.livejournal.com]

i definitely don't like the grey. but your web designer is smart. maybe you could do it b lack with stars, ro something?

[icedrake.livejournal.com]

Are you referring to the background behind the white text block? If so, it looks fine (since I've discovered there's a *huge* difference in brightness output between an LCD and a CRT screen, I disclose that mine is an LCD, Hyundai L90D+, set to about 50% brightness/contrast). What I take issue with is the abrupt termination of the left-hand nav bar. A rounder corner would do well down there, same as the line under the title bar. Or simply extend the nav bar all the way down the page, probably by adding a variable height block of black below the image.

Sorry if I'm overstepping my opinion-giving bounds here; I'm trying to produce my own site, and am very much in critique-mode right now. (And also, it appears, in severe dash-abuse mode :)

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

No worries: input is definitely helpful. I'm just not sure what YOU mean.

(1) How can something be behind something on a two dimensional screen, and thus, what do YOU mean by the background behind the white text block?
(2) I don't know what abrupt termination you're talking about... is the left nav bar abruptly terminating just below the last menu option? Because if so, I don't see it here on my screen at work.

[icedrake.livejournal.com]

Okay, time for some screenshots. First, re: two-dimensional screens: The shadows imply depth and layering. Upon further consideration, I was reading this wrong, and the image is supposed to actually *overlay* the text and the background colour. The shadow from the globe and the navbar fall on top of the text block and the background. But try as I might, I can't shake the following visual interpretation: The globe is the front-most layer, followed by the text, and then by the background, and only *then* the navbar/title bar.

Here's the cutoff bit I was referring to. The shadow continues right up to the end of the nav bar background image, and then terminates. The problem is, I don't believe there's a way to do shadows in either HTML or CSS without using images. Any way of doing what I'd suggested in the original comment would be fairly ugly, code-wise.


Here's the background I'm referring to. What weere *you* referring to? :)

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

OK. The first thing you are referring to is not something I can make happen in my browser here at work, for some reason. But I agree that it does not look good.

The second thing is not something that had even occurred to me. I guess she COULD do rounded corners there, but I suspect that would vastly complicate the coding, based on my understanding of how she designed this particular site.

So, there's the text area that is a pale lavender/almost white. To its right there is a pale bar of almost-black that is not as black as the title bar across the top. I was referring to its COLOUR, and not even thinking about shapes. To me, it seems like that colour should either match the header bar, or should be the same colour as the body (the pale lavender/almost white).

[con-girl.livejournal.com]

I rather agree with icedrake. I think all black would be oppressive and all white rather blinding on my screen.

I initially thought that running the sidebar colour all the way down the page would be visual better but from a functionality perspective this set up clearly demonstrates that there is nothing of importance in the null space - a clarity that should not be discounted.

[eetmewithtoast.livejournal.com]

I'd make it dark again. But that's my personal aesthetic, I *love* dark websites. I do not claim "professional web designer" amongst my credentials.

[sunspiral.livejournal.com]

I think it's visually distracting and pulls the eye away from the content. Possibly use the lighter color in some other way that guides one to the content instead?

Also, I appear to be having a browser problem where all the content keeps showing up in Latin. :-)

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

>I think it's visually distracting and pulls the eye away from the content. Possibly use the lighter color in some other way that guides one to the content instead?

Dunno. I'll have to discuss the options with misslynx, who designed the site.

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

>Also, I appear to be having a browser problem where all the content keeps showing up in Latin. :-)

Shall I smack you upside the head with a rolled up porn mag? Lee Valley Porn? Maybe that would help make sense of the latin.

Oh wait, you only top, iirc. I guess you'll just have to wait for me to write the actual content. ;p

Lee Valley Porn (?)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_duncan/]

Um, no, Ace is the place with my helpful hardcore man.

[yaksman.livejournal.com]

I think it works as is.
There's a neutral colour on the right and below that nicely implies "don't bother, this isn't important", without being opressive or bleak, as a black space might.

Oh, and I really like the design overall.

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

>Oh, and I really like the design overall.

Yay!

[aberrantvirtue.livejournal.com]

I like it, and it's a pretty standard practice to break up black/dark blue/navy like that in web design. I think the only reason your eye is noticing it is because It's not quite in the same color family as the dark above it (but rather the blue of the images in your header).

If you want to see how it looks with the dark it's a quick screenshot and photoshopping. I think you'll find that your writing space feels really really small if you do that. OTOH, I look at it as a designer might, not as a journalist.

[jackspryte.livejournal.com]

Do you have a copy of the "claustrophobic design" I think we could compare. I think the total black would look dark but not necessarily bad.

The site looks fabulous and I agree the dark grey looks worse at the bottom than on the side. Fix it so that the page only goes down to where the graphic stops. Leave a really small (like 4 point) line of grey. It might look better.

[blackorchid1.livejournal.com]

It's barely even noticeable from my end of things.

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

Yeah, on my work computer it isn't very noticeable, but on my laptop it is VERY noticeable.

http://danaeris.spidersilk.net/

[http://users.livejournal.com/_duncan/]

The nearly white section has symmetrical margins with the block of text. The text seems to be fixed, so extending the background to the right would make the text look off-center. If the text is not fixed you'd wind up with less page-like paragraphs. Don't make the block in question light.

The current shade of gray is both too light and too "not brown" for the place on the page. Look closely, though, and you'll find it matches another border she's placed around the entire page. On my screen I see it as about "1 ex" wide on all sides when the window is small and much wider at the bottom when the window is full-screen.

Ask me three months ago and I could have taken it a step bigger. I traded to a less capable monitor, more concerned with physical space and startup power needs.

That border is not necessary and not helpful. It is a distraction at the edges that draws attention to minor monitor misalignment issues. I picture people poking at display controls rather than reading your content. Extending the starfield to the page borders would fix that.

The shading between the header and the text background looks like the edge of a smoothly lit rigid tablet. I like that.

The shading between the header and the gray box looks like video bleed, smearing of an image where the baseline luminescence of the right edge of a line is influenced by the average brightness of the content to the left, sometimes a symptom of power supply weakness in the monitor. Visually the shading would look better if it stopped at the edge of the tablet. I suggest the same feature at the right and bottom edges of the tablet as well, if she can do it.

The fade from background image to black on the right edge at the top works. It's smooth.

The fade from background to black under the navigation bar works less well. There is a reddish brown feature under the word "contact" that looks chopped off by the black block. Being lazy I'd leave that alone but it could be fixed by adding a little more image at the bottom.

Lose the gray border and make the block in question black (easiest) or black with wisps of reddish brown and hints of lavendar mist (like the header) and it'll look consistant to my eye.

On a different note, the URL and the page content tie this username to your legal name where I thought you were avoiding that association.