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Outline Unity!
Topic Started: Tuesday, 9. July 2013, 16:26 (4,701 Views)
Cody
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Winter is coming.
Outline Community Theme
O U T L I N E . U N I T Y


View the final product: Switch to "Outline Unity" in the theme selector!
View the release topic: http://outlineforum.com/topic/5178417/1/

After just about seven months of incredible and intense development, our community has officially pulled together to create a complete and customized theme. There were tons of people who put forth effort to make this possible - whether you submitted an entry to a battle, actually won a battle and had your work featured on the theme, or you simply observed and voted on your favorite design in each battle. The contribution size doesn't matter - it's all about collaborating, learning from each other, and taking many parts and combining them into a whole.

I'd like to hear any final reflections on the process as well - should we do this again? Is there anything about the process that could use some refining? Do you have any ideas that could help innovate or make our next theme even more unique?
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Geoffrey
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It's a love story, baby just say yes
Amazing. It came together much better than I expected.

One thing to improve upon in some way is that throughout this process, the consistency in the design wasn't really kept in tune with each element. I'm not sure what to do about that though, without removing the purpose of the theme creation.
Consider this statement my permission to convert my themes to other platforms. Please link back to http://geoffreykoester.com. Be sure to rehost all theme images on the new platform as we do not know how long they will redirect. Also some boards hosting theme/skin images may not survive the move.

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Louisa
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Louisa Vuitton
first impressions are for me it looks very nice :D i like themes like this so much more than the usual ones

(y)
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cynosure.x
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Reach for the stars.
Oh my god I love it! <3 New theme for me, bye bye Future!
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apotheosis
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I do it for the lulz
very nice theme it came together very well!

but! as stated above next time try to keep the consistency of the design throughout. there are somethings that flow really nice together and somethings that don't match....

for me specifically it would be the forum markers.
they don't really flow with the theme very well, but that's just me lol...
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Kieran
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Spiffingly British.
Honestly I'm not a huge fan of it. I feel like it's been thrown together too quickly without much thought for a lot of parts of it. I'm not taking away from the actual design at all - I think the print is quite lovely, to be honest. I just feel the final product feels unfinished. A lot of aspects of the theme feel like they could have had more time spent on them. The font for the textareas are still default and the buttons are still Arial/Helvetica, I believe. The dropdowns don't have enough spacing either.

Once again, not taking away from the actual print, just feel like it could have been executed better in coding.
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Viral
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Level 5
Really like it :) .
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Kiwi
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Bleh. An example of things not being thought out too well is the way links are identified, through bolding. Even in this thread, you've boldened the text prior to the link, as people commonly do in order to make conceiving the format as is much more easy. I mean, I like it overall, but it's flaws are enough for me to deem it something I won't be using frequently. Much better than expected though haha.
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Joe
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Hi.
Neat concept and very cool to see it all come together.

Agreed regarding the consistency of the design. I think there are a few things that could help with that. For one, the theme needs to have a color pallet. This one, while the array of colors is nice, is somewhat of a splash of colors. Having two or three colors - little boxes on the bottom of the print perhaps - would keep the design more fluid color-wise. I also think it may be helpful to have a particular gradient to use (so, for instance, if someone had a specific gradient preset for the H2, the next user could save the gradient and use it on the large buttons or another element).

Overall, much better than I expected as well. I feel like the design could use quite a bit more contrast in general (particularly on the index, where there is a lot of white text on a much darker background). Maybe some opacity differential would help, but I guess that's just personal preference.

Well done, all!
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Geoffrey
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It's a love story, baby just say yes
Joe
Tuesday, 9. July 2013, 23:15
Neat concept and very cool to see it all come together.

Agreed regarding the consistency of the design. I think there are a few things that could help with that. For one, the theme needs to have a color pallet. This one, while the array of colors is nice, is somewhat of a splash of colors. Having two or three colors - little boxes on the bottom of the print perhaps - would keep the design more fluid color-wise. I also think it may be helpful to have a particular gradient to use (so, for instance, if someone had a specific gradient preset for the H2, the next user could save the gradient and use it on the large buttons or another element).

Overall, much better than I expected as well. I feel like the design could use quite a bit more contrast in general (particularly on the index, where there is a lot of white text on a much darker background). Maybe some opacity differential would help, but I guess that's just personal preference.

Well done, all!
This is what's helpful. Just trashing the theme on it's own doesn't do much for future projects.

And I completely agree about a color pallet. Perhaps that can be one of the battles, early on?
Consider this statement my permission to convert my themes to other platforms. Please link back to http://geoffreykoester.com. Be sure to rehost all theme images on the new platform as we do not know how long they will redirect. Also some boards hosting theme/skin images may not survive the move.

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Moonface
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I think overall it's decent considering this is what, the first time this was ever done? I think the issue with links being white along with normal text could be fixed easily. What about leaving links white, and making normal text a little darker? That way there's some difference to it all. Right now, everything is in white and so no particular area of text can stand out.

As for doing another, I don't see a reason why not. Perhaps to start off a new one, users submit an idea for what the theme is based on along with a colour palette or something, so there's a basis of "We're doing this theme with these colours". Or just let people submit a colour palette as a starting point and then let people take it from there with what the design turns out like, rather than stating "We want a glossy theme so you have to make a glossy H2 even if you could do something better without gloss".
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Louisa
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Louisa Vuitton
this may be nothing, but it's kind of bugging me XD

http://i.imgur.com/MYTSBGvh.png

the envelopes aren't aligned, and it makes the right box uneven D: disaster! :D

there's a couple of other things just a pixel out of alignment too, or maybe it's my browser?
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Cody
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Winter is coming.
Joe
Tuesday, 9. July 2013, 23:15
Agreed regarding the consistency of the design. I think there are a few things that could help with that. For one, the theme needs to have a color pallet. This one, while the array of colors is nice, is somewhat of a splash of colors. Having two or three colors - little boxes on the bottom of the print perhaps - would keep the design more fluid color-wise. I also think it may be helpful to have a particular gradient to use (so, for instance, if someone had a specific gradient preset for the H2, the next user could save the gradient and use it on the large buttons or another element).
This sounds like a good idea - as Moonface said, I think I may start round #1 next time as the color palette and maybe some reference images to go off of.

It's about finding a balance between consistency and allowing each person to add a bit of personality to the theme. I do agree that some more standards (colors, fonts, style, etc.) established in the beginning could help solidify the entire process more without compromising much in creativity and personality.

But at the same time, you have to think about what the theme is: it's a collage of a lot of minds, perceptions, and skill-levels. There are going to be inconsistencies in the design, it's something that can't be helped due to the nature of the project (closed collaborations are hard enough, open ones are extremely difficult). We can try to reduce the inconsistencies, but we can't remove them - as we do this more and more, however, I believe we'll naturally acquire a better skill with handling things.

Next time we'll also make sure to post the final product for feedback on the overall coding. It was available for feedback on the test board at any time throughout the process, but I do realize it needs a period of open feedback so that people are aware of it and know where to post their comments. Nick spent hours perfecting the coding, so it's not quite fair to say it was rushed - perhaps prematurely released I could see. But we'll fix anything that's off on this theme and remember it for next time.

Thanks everyone for your feedback so far - it's been very helpful, and it will only lead to a better Community Theme #2. :)
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Gabe.
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I like the idea of a color pallet, maybe the first part of future contests would be choosing a color pallet, and having everyone vote on one they like, or leave that to the header designer.

This turned out great, I'll be using this for now. Future is too buggy anyway :r
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Fates
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"Fates"
After lurking for years, you guys really have made it a long way.
Going to try and ease back into the forum life, 5 year breaks and alot of things have changed aha.
Always been into the Themes you guys produce though! And the majority of your GFX Staff is amazing.

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ærodynamik.
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Looks nice.
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Lokyr
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I really like it. :)
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Chesterfield
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I'm a big fan of the theme overall. Like others said,it's better than I ever expected it to turn out. I've had it on while lurking the past couple days and it's really grown on me.

I'm not sure if it would take away from the sense of involvement, but I think maybe next time someone could take the finalized print with all of the different parts created by different people and just redesign it (as in copy, just to insure that it's consistent throughout). You could make it the last battle or something to copy it and whoever's everyone likes the most gets coded. Maybe? Idk.

But like I said, I really do like the outcome of this one. (y)
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tony
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pursuit of happiness
Themes look nice, it is easy on the eyes. My default for now :)
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Akash
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Akash = Sky
Amazing news, really glad to get it released :D
Congratulations Outline :)

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STAY TUNED, THIS WILL BE FUN !!

:akash:


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