Membership Aesthetics of an RP site

[FriedKilamari 46]

I like pretty skins, but all the content needs to be visible. I don't mind fading images, so long as it's done well and not everywhere.

 

When it comes to site aesthetics, I'm a firm believer of K.I.S.S. Keep it stupid simple. All the bells and whistles in the world won't save your site if the layout is bad or cluttered. A few nicely graphics, placed well, and *mwah*. Perfect. But simple can easily cross over into boring, so it's all about finding that balance.

 

I'll also turn my back on sites without skin options. If your only skin is black, red, and white, I'm gonna say no because those colors are really hard on eyes in general. My vision is already suffering, I'm not gonna put myself through eye strain to read...

[Kaycakes 78]

Ha! This is what I love about the RP community. People favor individuality over conformity. For my part, I look at several things when it comes to the question of aesthetics: The almighty theories / rules of graphics, marketing, and the culinary arts. I know, those things seem different, but bear with me.

Graphic community always talk about color theory and primary rules. What complements, what contrasts, what can be commercially used to grab attention, what mixture evokes the right feelings. Marketing employs branding and they use color theories to accomplish this, too. Red gives off either anger or passion. Purple is royalty. Blah blah. Thick letters? Thin letters? Squiggly lines? Embossing? Should we add eyes to that letter? What's extra visually punny? What represents their brand best?

People love colors and lines. We like to be tricked sometimes with optical illusions. We also enjoy comforts and surprises with specific colors. For instance, my love goes to bold colors, but I find more comfort in purple, gray, and black when it comes to clothing, blankets, wall painting, or pillows. Inasmuch as we associate scents with certain memories, we're gonna do the same with colors, shapes, and lines.

 

The same sort of principle applies with food. Most people are gonna grumble and say, "I just wanna be able to eat this" -- and that is totally valid. You want edible food, but it's also been proven that food presented well with splashes of color besides the white/yellow common variations of poor people's food actually aids with enjoyment of said food. >.> (don't judge, we've had baked potato and rice for a couple of days now). 

All that to say, I do like aesthetics in RP. I like it to be ... smart, though. Intuitive. Sometimes bold, or maybe simply elegant. But mostly intuitive. Intuitively, you wouldn't choose chaotic boxes, fonts too thick or thin or shortened height to read, badly contrasting colors, or something that simply does not represent what your RP is about to begin with. My idea of aesthetic is something that won't take away from reading and writing. It needs to immerse me in the world you've built for me to contribute happily and without complaint.

Edited to add: I also consider organization to be highly aesthetic. Seriously! Nothing is sexier than looking upon beautifully organized categories, forums, subforums, and topics. *happy sighs* Everything easily found and easily read.

Edited August 24, 2017 by Kaycakes

[featherstone 69]

I like pretty skins, but pretty does not mean overly complicated, especially not at detriment of readability. I've seen skins that looked beautiful - until you actually tried to do anything on that board... On the other hand, a theme that matches the mood of a game helps immersion - it's not easy to create the right atmosphere when you're using, say, zetaboards' blue and orange default theme.

Edited August 25, 2017 by featherstone

[Guest Archaic Cyborg]

It matters to me at a glance, and for longterm... use?

 

Rainbow aesthetics for a horror or drama, yeah no/. Same for low contrast colours, pixely images, macro shots of someone's nose or toe, etc-- it needs to fit the rpg.

[Krobon 1]

When visiting a site, the first thing I notice is whether everything is easily legible, rather than how pleasing the skin is or such.. Honestly, I'd rather have a forum that is easy to navigate than one that looks all pimped out. After that it's all about whether the setting and site content appeals to me. First impressions are important, but there is no single right way to do it I imagine.