Website banner. Opinions?

[littleboy6326]

I've been working on a banner for a little while, and I'd appreciate some critique on what I could do to improve it. It's only a basic thing, I'm not particularly creative - so anyone willing to give me a few tips would be great!




I'm aware the text looks a bit bland and boring - what could I do to improve this?

[Byakuya San]

Well, if you wanted to fix the text, I would try something that's a little less jarring than green. I also don't think serif fonts are the best choice for this banner--my suggestion is to use something simple like Helvetica, Arial, or Century Gothic at a large size and to make it pop by setting the color to white (or gray or off-white). Then just playing around with the opacity and drop shadows could make the banner look better. If you really want the text to be green, then you should try out a few other different shades and take out the texture overlay.

My other recomendation is to distribute the colors in the background images a bit better. Since the rightmost part of the banner lacks the bright color of the left side, the banner feels unbalanced. If you moved the images around so that you have a bit of color on both sides of the banner, it would look much better.

Hope my suggestions help!

[littleboy6326]

Thanks for the tips. Would moving Gordan to the middle help at all, do you reckon? I just of just threw him in there, without really thinking about where he should be placed.

[Shoyru_Lover]

It depends on where you want the viewer to focus I think. WIS is am amazing graphician here so maybe also PM him for some pointers.

About centering the image... it depends where you throw in the text as it changes the entire balance. I think you're doing a really good thing though by throwing yourself in there and trying things out. It's a creative thing so don't intellectualize it too much and don't be afraid to make mistakes.

The font colour needs to be changed though I think.

[littleboy6326]

Yeah. I'm an absolutely abysmal graphics artist - I'm not too bad at editing existing photographs... But when it comes down to graphics design and such, I must admit I'm lacking in talent.

I'll have a look at the font colour and style - and see what I can do to improve it. I'll update this once I'm done.

Updated the image. Criticism now?

[Byakuya San]

I think it looks better now with Gordon as the focal point, but the OMG!! should be placed so that it doesn't cover up the character that's behind it right now. Otherwise, I think it looks better than before.

Yeah. I'm an absolutely abysmal graphics artist - I'm not too bad at editing existing photographs... But when it comes down to graphics design and such, I must admit I'm lacking in talent.

Don't be so hard on yourself! With a lot of experimenting and practicing, everyone can get better at graphic designing.

[littleboy6326]

Okay, I've moved it slightly to the left so now you can see the character behind it.

Is there anything I can tweak to make the header more professional?

[ginny-ROX]

I think the PC Games part blends with the background just that little too much and the two exclamation marks kind of cover up the face of the robot but otherwise I think it is great.