Poll: colorish GUI or more classical?

[gizmo]

I am, heaven help me, a painter by trade.

What designers often try to accomplish by dramatic shifts in value -- ie contrast -- or chroma --ie color -- can be achieved with a minimum of eye strain by using the logic of light, which is inescapable. The key to this is understanding color opposites. If you have a specific color of blue and add a bit of orange (opposite color) to it and make it darker the second color will recede visually -- ie be perceived as a shadow. This can be worked in a zillion different ways but is the only way of working with color that is easy on the eyes because it is natural, the way light behaves. It's logical but involves thinking in a circle which is hard at first but actually much more interesting than linear thought at least to me.

[Blue Cat Audio]

PLEASE DEVELOPERS, NO MORE CIRCULAR CONTROL KNOBS!

I do agree! That's why I prefer to user sliders which are linear, even if it's a bit bigger on the GUI. It's really easier to use. (just get mad with those circular knobs!)

[Blue Cat Audio]

What designers often try to accomplish by dramatic shifts in value -- ie contrast -- or chroma --ie color -- can be achieved with a minimum of eye strain by using the logic of light, which is inescapable. The key to this is understanding color opposites. If you have a specific color of blue and add a bit of orange (opposite color) to it and make it darker the second color will recede visually -- ie be perceived as a shadow. This can be worked in a zillion different ways but is the only way of working with color that is easy on the eyes because it is natural, the way light behaves. It's logical but involves thinking in a circle which is hard at first but actually much more interesting than linear thought at least to me.

That seems interesting. Could you develop a bit more and give a graphical example?

[Sicklecell666]

He's talking about a color wheel and using contrast.



You balance a color with it's 180 degree contrasting color.

[McLilith]

He was also saying to make sure that one of the colors was definitely brighter than the other one, unless you want to make some cool "hurt your eyes" op-art.




take care,
McLilith

[Sicklecell666]

delete! delete!

[asseca]

Just a quick experiment using less bright colors...

[Blue Cat Audio]

Thanks for all your tips! Maybe I should go Psyche...

I know I still have a lot of work (I didi not start looking at buttons, text and logo colors+fonts), but what do you think of this new direction?

[McLilith]

Hi asseca,

The lettering on your buttons doesn't have enough contrast. They're too hard to read.

Also, that large, thin font you have used for some of the panel markings is hard to read. For example, that word in the lower-left corner which is printed vertically. That's awkward to read. This is largely due to the font used. It's very thin and wispy. It gets lost when pixelated on a computer monitor.

take care,
McLilith

[Sicklecell666]

I know I still have a lot of work (I didi not start looking at buttons, text and logo colors+fonts), but what do you think of this new direction?

A great step forwards.

[asseca]

McLilith,
Your comments are valid, my experiment was only done in 5 minutes copying the image of the VST, and by changing the overall color impression to see how it would look.

bluecatonline,
This already looks much better, McLilith has already made some comments which could be of use to you.
Also, try a darker red text in the Right Channel.

[bduffy]

That looks way better, BlueCat.

[McLilith]

...what do you think of this new direction?

This shows promise, but the contrast is still too murky for my taste. Also, those white labels over the vertical sliders are in an awkward location. You have them placed on what appears to be the edge of a horizontal "buldge" in the front panel. This is a bit distracting. On top of that, there is also a horizontal "crack" or "seam" that is aligned with those words, and clutters this area of the GUI even further.

I'm also not sure that you need to imply quite so much curvature in the face of your buttons. The amount of tonal gradation across the face of the button is so great, that you will have problems finding font colors that are equally legible at each corner of the button. I would try keeping the shading of the button faces flat, and only implying curvature at the very edges of the button. This will give you a nice solid color across the main face of the button, and make picking legible font colors much easier.

The rolled edge surrounding your display area looks a bit unnatural. The placement of the highlights and shadows doesn't look quite normal. Judging from the lighting of your buttons, your main light source is somewhere beyond the upper-left corner of the GUI. If this is so, then the lower edge of your display's cutout should appear much brighter, since it is being lit more directly than the upper edge of the opening.


take care,
McLilith

[AndrewSimon]

Very good start.
In my opinion the most practical, simple and tasteful GUI are those of Torben (the gold series)

[Blue Cat Audio]

Anyway I think I won't bother with too much 3D effects and fancy shapes. The most simple, the most efficient!

(but I still hate knobs...)