2014-08-15, 16:37
To piggy back off of what everyone else is saying. This is a truly beautiful skin. The wide fan art concept is stunning. I love a skin that features fan art in some unique way. I think it is important to be very careful about doing too much. You don't want things to become too "cutesy." If you do plan to have popups cover up the art and what not, I would definitely consider having an option that disables those popups for users like me that want to keep the fan art visible.
Edit: Just a couple more thoughts. I wish I had photo editing software so I could contribute to my thinking with mockups. Again in my opinion, what makes your skin mockups so great is how it features the fan art, and I think a goal should be to cover it as little as possible. Maybe instead of using the orange bar, when you are navigating down below the fan art could fade slightly and the title could go in the upper left hand corner of the fan art in white text? Or possibly an overlay could cover the main menu at the top? The very best screen is definitely the first one when you open this thread.
One more idea, I am currently on Refocus, because I like skins that feature fan art and Refocus does that beautifully. When activating a widget in that skin, the main menu slides out of the way completely and slides back in when you navigate away from the widgets and back to the main menu. This would allow you to keep the orange bar to show title and selection while not covering any of the fanart. Everything in the screen wouldn't have to shift necessarily either. Just have the fanart be the correct size that it is out of frame on the top and bottom so when the top menu slides away or when the orange bar slides away that bit of art becomes visible.
Edit: Just a couple more thoughts. I wish I had photo editing software so I could contribute to my thinking with mockups. Again in my opinion, what makes your skin mockups so great is how it features the fan art, and I think a goal should be to cover it as little as possible. Maybe instead of using the orange bar, when you are navigating down below the fan art could fade slightly and the title could go in the upper left hand corner of the fan art in white text? Or possibly an overlay could cover the main menu at the top? The very best screen is definitely the first one when you open this thread.
One more idea, I am currently on Refocus, because I like skins that feature fan art and Refocus does that beautifully. When activating a widget in that skin, the main menu slides out of the way completely and slides back in when you navigate away from the widgets and back to the main menu. This would allow you to keep the orange bar to show title and selection while not covering any of the fanart. Everything in the screen wouldn't have to shift necessarily either. Just have the fanart be the correct size that it is out of frame on the top and bottom so when the top menu slides away or when the orange bar slides away that bit of art becomes visible.