Coding Favorite Skin Trends

[Shades 676]

1. Larger font (think of us old people!);

2. Good contrast (light on dark or vice-versa, and in different color palettes);

3. Sidebars with all the important links handy, gimme;

4. Clean design. I'm a grumpy old lady, so overly busy design is not my thing.

 

Basically, be readable and not too confusing, and we're good, y'all. 

[Morrigan 1,826]

On 4/17/2018 at 12:23 PM, katherineespair said:

A trend that I'm a little crazy about, and do not have on my site, is the character picture on the floating bar above the site where the login etc are.  (does that make sense?) It brings me back to .. what was it? Acornrack? Avidgamers? When they would have your avatar picture in the sidebar? Welcome  NAME.

 

This is totally doable on jcink but you can't use the standard userbar.

[Val 28]

I'm digging the minimalism a lot of sites are doing these days. So long as a link to finding the main info is near the top somewhere? Mmm. Smells fresh.

[Muse 121]

I'm not sure if any of these things are trends. If they're not, can I request them? LOL.

I'm a fan of decent typography—sites with tiny text are not sites I want to encourage. I'm old and often viewing on my phone and I have noticed that Jcink totally hates my phone. So, any trend to improve forum typography is a trend I'm on board with.

Minimalism—if it's simple, I'm already in love with it, regardless of the genre.

Logical navigation—if your lore is buried, I'm already gone.

[beans 19]

It's been said before, but minimalism. I love it, I use it, I stan it. 

[theluckyone 4]

My favorite without a doubt is larger fonts and good contrast! I have older eyes as well and it just makes all the difference. Don't make me zoom to 150% just to read the rules or literally anything else.

 

I don't overly mind lots of images for profiles because it helps me to get into the mindset of a new character because I can explore looks I like for them and ones that I don't. But I totally understand the frustration of it when I have a face claim that doesn't have a lot of photos!

[NFT47 40]

Larger fonts for sure and the cool visuals and pictures that are used on profiles. I love seeing several gifs and images. I think it's great how customizable things are getting and I enjoy it.

[Huskerdust 625]

I love the different styles of profiles and member lists lately. <3

[Grimscythe 181]

Contrast, large font, minimalism, and colorfulness are what I like to see in a skin. Also, the slow shift toward profile apps is actually winning me over and encouraging me to fill out more app sites than the use of doHTML apps. 

[4rt3m1s 16]

The main thing I'm keen on for a skin is that I resize my window and it won't mess everything up / a sidebar won't cover everything. I do a lot of writing with another window open at the same time to watch Netflix or something, and I tend to get a bit irritated if I can't do that with a site (though skins are never a dealbreaker for me). I also really like minimalism in skins, and I like it best when they somehow - possibly counterintuitively - manage to have a lot of features but also be sleek and minimalist.

[Ruin 1]

I really enjoy the sleekness of newer designs.  They don't feel quite so "boxy" anymore, and it seems like designers are trying a lot of new color combinations that are very appealing to the eye. 

[Randalin 2]

I love elegant designs that are not 'busy' with good color contrast. I've had to squint at dark text on a dark background too many times to count; I love darker designs but that has always made it difficult for me to stay engaged!

[ThriftStoreTeeth 78]

I'm rather enjoying how less boards are using the "this skin only works on my massive iMac in Google Chrome" nonsense. Any board that still recommends a browser or screen size is one that I'm judging super hard. You don't run my life, mysterious person, and I will download Netscape Navigator to tell you this, just to spite you. Horizontal scrollbars get me heated... Sorry...

 

More seriously, I'm really loving the levels of competency/skill when it comes to graphics these days. I remember so many eye-bleedingly bad headers and graphics all done in LunaPic and the like, and miss those even less than Blingee gifs on MySpace... Is good graphics even a trend? I don't know, but I'm saying it is now!

 

One trend that I wish would catch on is well done parallax scrolling elements. I don't care what your board is about, put a couple of those on, and I'll join and be your most active member just to drool over them!

[Muse 121]

17 hours ago, ThriftStoreTeeth said:

I'm rather enjoying how less boards are using the "this skin only works on my massive iMac in Google Chrome" nonsense. Any board that still recommends a browser or screen size is one that I'm judging super hard.

 

More seriously, I'm really loving the levels of competency/skill when it comes to graphics these days. I remember so many eye-bleedingly bad headers and graphics all done in LunaPic and the like, and miss those even less than Blingee gifs on MySpace... Is good graphics even a trend? I don't know, but I'm saying it is now!

 

One trend that I wish would catch on is well done parallax scrolling elements. I don't care what your board is about, put a couple of those on, and I'll join and be your most active member just to drool over them!

 

Yes! Not only am I a big fan of mobile-friendly sites that aren't responsive because they just uhhhh you know shrink to fit your smaller device but actually rearrange themselves and function just as well when not on that gigantic resolution, but I also really love it when the typography is readable, too!

 

A few well-done animations (parallax included) goes a lot further, creatively speaking, than an entire website wiggling and writhing just right there on the home page. Totally the truth!

[Honorem 219]

I might be seen as crazy, but lighter skins.

 

Granted, neither of my sites use them. But light skins are not bad, especially when off-white and soft colours are used. It's good to see a fair few instead of just dark themes.