Ugly buttons

[DeeBye]

I absolutely detest the ugly-assed "new topic", "new poll", etc buttons. The baby blue colour must go. It really doesn't fit into the scheme of the LL.

I've taken the liberty of creating a button template that is a closer match to the colour scheme of the LL. The template copies the current button almost exactly. It's the same dimensions and the same basic concept.

Here's the basic button, fitting with the colour scheme:


Here's a sample button, after some text is applied:



Feel free to use my images to create some new and better buttons. But if you do, you OWE ME A BEER!


-DeeBye

[WarBlade]

Hmm, will a brown like that work for the buttons that sit directly under the same gradient overlay colour up top? Maybe orange would stand out a little better, although I think these two stand out just a little too much. :unsure:

[Bolty]

I'd have done this long ago, except for the fact that I stink at it.

Dee, I like the brown color - that text though is kind of "future techno." Since this site covers gothic games, can we get something more gothic?

Thanks for any and all work at this! I'll be happy to replace these ugly buttons.

-Bolty

[Wiccan]

sorry

[BobThePumpkin]

:ph34r:

[Feryar]

nice textmodification

[pakman]

What happened?

I like those new buttons. How about for the text of the brown ones, make it the same text as the rest of the site?

[Occhidiangela]

FWIW.

What is nice about the blue is that they stand out and are easily recognizeable. The subdued tones from DeeBye, whose color sense is very good, are just a bit too flat, IMO, and WarBlade's orange are consistent with your theme and bright enough for the eye to catch on the buttons most frequently used.

Just a small user feedback comment, I'll buy DeeBye the beer. :)

[Guest]

I prefer the orange to the flat brown.

But to be honest I like the blue.

[WarBlade]

What happened?

I like those new buttons.  How about for the text of the brown ones, make it the same text as the rest of the site?

I tried making it work when I whipped up those orange ones and was not at all surprised to see the resullts were les than desirable. There are two buttons sizes to accommodate and the Abaddon font looks passable on the larger size, but ultimately gets too thin in places and runs into the problems with rendering curves on monitors when sqashed into the smaller button.

The font I used on those orange buttons was about the best I could find that would actually look ok at such a small size while keeping to a 'gothic' typeface. Otherwise I was dealing with frustration at being unable to get away from the general suckiness of Arial etc. :(

[DeeBye]

I had the same problem. Any of the "fancy" fonts I tried just wouldn't work at that small size. Abaddon was particularly awful, due to all the curves. It's definitely out.

Blocky, straight-sided fonts might just be the only way to go, unless we increase the overall size of the buttons. I'm not sure that we want to that, though. Big buttons are distracting and ugly.

I'm also left with the problem of what fonts I can and cannot use here. All of my fonts are either the default Windows XP ones, or various freeware fonts I found here and there. The Windows XP fonts are generally pretty boring, but I don't want to use one of the prettier freeware fonts only to find out that they were "ripped off" from a commercial font.

-DeeBye

[Nicodemus Phaulkon]

Not to tread on anyone's artistic wave... but wouldn't the button graphics from the Amazon Basin work rather well, considering the colors you're advocating? They're designed within an Invision environment as well?

[DeeBye]

The subdued tones from DeeBye, whose color sense is very good, are just a bit too flat, IMO, and WarBlade's orange are consistent with your theme and bright enough for the eye to catch on the buttons most frequently used.

Good point. I originally yoinked (stole) the colour gradient directly from a screengrab I took while browsing the LL forums (I believe it's the "topic title" gradient). I can see how the same colour gradient in both the topic title AND the accompanying buttons would be a bit drab. Confusing, too.

Okay, so I took my original button template...

...and increased the red in it.


Better? VOTE NOW!


Here are a couple of samples with some text hastily applied.

I used the Arial font for the first one.


And, on a lark, I tried out Abaddon for the next one (Yes, I realise that the text is off-center. I saw it while previewing this post. Easily fixed.)


I suppose it doesn't look too bad, and I think I can increase the font size a wee bit more if I had to. This would give it more definition. It might work out quite well.

Keep in mind that I am copying the current buttons' general layout as I go about this. I have a fair bit of leeway to alter quite a lot of the general design. The only thing I am pretty adamant on sticking with is (are?) the dimensions of the button.

FYI, the size is 94x30 pixels, including the transparent border which is necessary to allow for the curved corners. I could gain a few pixels in each direction if I nuked the whole "curved corners dealie-schmealie".


-DeeBye

[Wiccan]

Ummmm still does not like it, it has no gothic flare to say of remember bolty or whoever said this is gothic atmosphere in the forums dedicated to diablo 2.

Was right on the button, if you could find away to make reply and edit with gothic flare but i will say the new topic font i like that one, in the last button there is gothic taste, deebye but i know how hard it to make menu buttons... but whoever said it has to be or rectangle

what else shapes can you make with your button program hollowed circled with cross in them: edit, new reply, new thread, would be fun to see sorry if this sound like flame, it's not just seeing what else you can come up with and to get everyone's creative juices going.....

[Ferality]

I, too, had a dabble with the forum-buttons.

All I changed, was the gradient-fill of the blue to copper.



All the elements are in a multi-layer PSD. It would be easy to change the colours and fonts. If Bolty has a proggie which supports PSD, I could send the file.

Just a thought...
_____________

Ferality - Life is what's taking place while your busy leveling your chars.

[Bolty]

Yes, I have Adobe Photoshop and can handle .psd's. Just email me the goods.

These look pretty nice. Maybe what I can do is put these buttons up in one of the forums and then run a poll to see what people think of them.

-Bolty

[Wiccan]

ME like those ones better then the blue ones!