Tramposch, on Jul 14 2009, 03:50 PM, said:
Well what are some pros :-p, Its hard to critique your own layout.
Oh, um, well, i'll start from top to bottom.
The first one has the best banner; though, personally, i would have liked it more if it were slightly brighter and if the gradient was flipped horizontally. The typography is also good.
The second one, not really fond of that one, sorry.
The third one has a nice color scheme and makes more clear the point of the site than the other layouts.
The forth one has a nice background and footer. Using icons for the navigation also helps make the user (visitor) make decisions faster for when choosing where to go next on the site. But the Vista icon and the navigation icon seem to be competing with each other in sense of quality, and i can't say if they match the site's overall look.
The fifth one really makes known what it is without even having to read the content, even if it doesn't show what the forums is about without first reading the content, all with a nice theme. The typography is good here too, but still lacking variety. Comparing the first template with this template in typography is about the same, but this one seems to be asking for more variety.
I didn't get much into the cons for each. And I know you've done
research on this before, but you should look into more user interface design theories and patterns, and also do some (more) research on user experience.