Competition: Forum overhaul

[Guest]

Since I'm sick in bed, I need some help designing the forum.
I'm making it a competition so everyone can attend.

What I require is:

Main logo (top of the page)

Menu bar buttons in the order of:
-Home
-Forum
-Schedule
-Search
-Memberlist
-Ranks
-Profile
-Mailbox
-Register
-Log In
-Log out

Background image, needs to be looping (as we run on different resolutions)

Icons:
-An icon for each of the categories
-New post
-No new post
-Sticky
-Announcement
-Global Announcement

Buttons:
- New post
- Reply
- Quote
- Multiquote

The prize will be 2500 gold, or Ding doing riverdance...
Or the winner can honorably donate the money to remove adds from the forum
for half a year (aka I pay for it).

[Ding760]

I'd like to emphasize that the prospect of a Chinaman who lives in Ireland doing Riverdance is a much sought after affair. There are many men who would get drunk and pissed to see a novelty like this happen!

[Vallu01]

I'm considering to learn how to design this stuff just to see Ding do riverdance

[Guest]

I announce there are no winners then.

[lazydot]

Hey there, I was using some free open source icon sets in some open source as well as commercial projects already, one of the most known is:
http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Icon_Library


There are more icon-set projects available, is it an option to use some mixture of the free ones?
http://www.google.de/search?q=free+forum+icons&hl=de&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=qmInUf2LCov4sgberICwBA&ved=0CC4QsAQ&biw=1139&bih=747

[lazydot]

Just had an idea about main logo, also I fear I don't have enough PS/Image editing skills to do it myself.

How about to enlarge the globe, put the tanks in the middle of it, so both texts are visible, maybe even putting the first overlaying tank, which will cover the most part of the glob with alpha transparency of 0.4 or so or even moving it in the background, so the glove is in the foreground covering the most parts of the "middle" tank?

Pros:
+ less vertical space in the browser covered with logo only
+ almost the same logo as before
Cons:
- Someone with enough skill has to do it, because pictures work better than words

What do you think about it?

[Guest]

Would look really weird with hoovering tanks... but I designed that thing, and I can modify it to your specifications. However, I do not think it will look pretty.

[lazydot]

Would look really weird with hoovering tanks... but I designed that thing, and I can modify it to your specifications. However, I do not think it will look pretty.

Its not specification, don't get it wrong, its just an idea, and after all you have to take a look at it to made your decision, whether it looks any better.

All I've tried to suggest is to use changed logo, so it would provide same idea/make same impression as before but using less vertical space, as top vertical space is the most important one in terms of usability of applications.

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