Green or blue?

I like version 1 better because it has 2 colors. If it's all blue it becomse monochrome and a little more boring to the eye. Blue is fine but I think it'd be cooler with a secondary color, like gold, or deep red...

I like the green because I'm used to seeing it. Seriously, it makes the place seem more consistent and stable.

Definitely the green. It makes me feel at home here at Scirra. :D

I like both color schemes, but my preference probably slides more toward green. It just feels more "fun" -- in my mind -- to look at than the teal-bluish shade of the newer scheme.

I agree with lucid, though...it is rather unfair that parts of the current layout already have a teal-bluish shade. Maybe if we choose to keep the current layout, those parts that are inconsistent could be corrected to fit in better?

I think we can learn a little by looking at other similar websites to see what works and what doesn't.

I searched for game engines websites and found a bunch of them, then classified them according to the level of attraction and professionalism they evoke on me.

These are the good ones:

A,B, C, D, E, F, G

These are the bad ones:

H, I, J, K, L, M

And these are in between:

N, O, P, Q

I currently think Scirra website is in between, that means it's not bad, and already avoided lots of atrocities of the bad ones, but there is definitely room for improvement.

If you look at the good ones, you will notice that most of them use neutral colors. Two of them ("F" and "G") add colors through headers rather than just in content. I think they are good examples to follow.

So for Scirra I would definitely drop the colors in the background and keep them just in the header. The blue layout image is really close in these respect. I would also remove those diagonal lines from the background since they just add "noise" and look kind of out of place. A gradient would work better than the lines, but is not really necessary.

As for the hue, I would go for a hotter color since it conveys more excitement than a colder one. If you look at the examples, and abstract the different illustrations density, "F" is more cheering than "G". In my point of view, any color with a good portion of yellow or red in it's composition is better for growing enthusiasm (yellow>red though). So for Scirra I think the green would be a better choice than blue. But it's good to remember that there's more tints of green than the ones used.

Other things that could be improved are the size of text, that is still too big, specially in the front page. This page in my opinion make a great use of text attributes like size, color, style, margins and column width to make it extremely readable, pleasant, and highlight titles and links to be easily found.

Also the drop shadows could be tweaked a little or dropped completely. I think they could be either shortened in length or be more transparent ("b" and "n" are good examples of subtle shadows). Another one is the search field, that is an odd element that breaks the layout and currently is not even functional. It would be better if it integrate seamlessly in the layout in the top bar or inside the header. The text field could be smaller too.

Those are my points, sorry if is too TLDR.

I voted for blue because it's 'easier' for the eyes.

Thanks for your comments guys, really appreciate them and all the time some people spent thinking about it!

I've talked to Ash, and we're going to try the blue on Monday because we generally both prefer it, the majority voted nearly 2:1 and it works better with some artwork we commissioned to have on our home page and a few other pages (can't wait to show it to you guys, the artwork is very cool and should help break the 'bland' effect).

If people are really upset about losing the green come Monday, it would be relatively easy for me to work in a green option in the profile, but ultimately I would rather not do this as it's another thing to maintain. But I'm willing to do that if people give the blue a fair chance for a week or so :)

I know some people might be a bit upset about losing the green but all I ask is for it to be given a fair chance and I'm confident most people will agree it's an all round improvement.

I liked the old color scheme, before the website changed.

The greens and greys worked well together, but the new greens

just seem very harsh. Or I can't remember right and these are the same greens.

The blue one is easier on the eyes, much softer than the green.

But I would like to see the old color scheme make a comeback :)

So the final is both green and blue?

This is what I have when I log in:

<img src="http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/2983/hybridforum.jpg" border="0" />

If you get green on the forum, clear your cache, or do a hard refresh several times until it goes blue.

Oooooh I see.

Sorry about that.

That's ok! It's semi my fault, I coded the site so I could force people to load new CSS/Images if I change them, but on the forum it's harder to do so.