Opinions on design

Hi everyone,

The people I'm making this site for want to see a 'black' version of this design. They weren't very specific but I'd like to get some ideas from some artistic/design minded people. I created everything from scratch by using various PS tutorials as guides.

The problem is I can't really think of a good way to make the site black considering the images used will most likely have white backgrounds and text is hard to read, etc.

Here is a link to a test site..
https://www.karenwilliamson.com/catalog

Here is a simple black header I created.
http://www.karenwilliamson.com/catalog/includes/templates/classic/images/black_header_03.gif

I agree that making the whole page black with white (or light) text would be hard on the eyes, and the images would not fit well.
What about the idea of a "black" page background, with the center column having a border fading in to light (like a candlelit or spotlit area)? The product info and images would stand out, be easy to read and not jar with the background.

You might add "fade" borders to any sidebox images too, to keep the point illumination theme going.

I like the black header.

gjh42:

I agree that making the whole page black with white (or light) text would be hard on the eyes, and the images would not fit well.
What about the idea of a "black" page background, with the center column having a border fading in to light (like a candlelit or spotlit area)? The product info and images would stand out, be easy to read and not jar with the background.

You might add "fade" borders to any sidebox images too, to keep the point illumination theme going.

I like the black header.

I'll give you 50 dollars for a design

If you could design that header, you don't need me.
Just make the spotlight background image sections and apply them to the center column using the sliding doors method (google if you don't already know it).

Besides, we're not supposed to do business in the forum.

gjh42:

If you could design that header, you don't need me.
Just make the spotlight background image sections and apply them to the center column using the sliding doors method (google if you don't already know it).

Besides, we're not supposed to do business in the forum.

Ha.. disregard that post. My brain was just stuck in 'pink' mode and I was having a hard time visualizing a black look. You're ideas were good and I'm going to try them out. Would you happen to have an example site using that technique?

Kuroi's Future Zen template uses it for the sideboxes and other elements - see it in action (and view source) at (sorry, site offline), and you can download the template files. There are many other examples - most anything with rounded corners, unless it's using the old-style tables checkerboard for it.

Actually, my site also uses it for the knotwork border at the right of the sidebar content. (Three elements - repeating bg image on right edge of navColumnOneWrapper, top end on top right of navMain and bottom end on bottom right of information box.)

You could set your background to black and have the background of your containers white and just follow suite with the pink headings and borders and such as you have already.

~B.

I attached 2 images that you might want to look at. You could change the color as desired. For your images, since they have white background, why not add a pink border around it.