http://zeroality.net/forumpreview.png

(too large for img tag sorry)

So that's a sketch of the planned forum header redesign. I won't be changing anything else, other than the read/unread forum markers. I'll be making three sets this time because the blue pretty much clashes with Vanilla and False Dawn.

I'd only done the logo/jirachi and decided to sketch out the planned layout for critique before it's a pain to make changes. Ignore the black border around the 'forum activity area' thing I have there - I'm using it as a guide and forgot to blank it. I may not use all of that height, and the plan is to have icons for each one. A little 'email' icon for the PMs, chat bubble for posts, whatever. Text alignment will probably also change to match.

The boxes at the upper right are going to be the links, as we have now. I'm not sure we'll need that many since IRC is being dropped. I'll see what there is to add - perhaps popular pages on the site. I'm also not too keen on using boxes, circles, or whatever else there is; because I can never get it to look the way I want. I may just slap them on there like the site has now. Thoughts on that?

Link spam in the middle, pretty much same as now. Bottom right has the search box. I had to learn how to do it for PO forums so we luck out here too.

tl;dr - click the link and tell me what you think.

Edit: Oh and guests will see the same thing, except a login box where the "unread" stuff is.