Comments sought

Hi Guys

I've been asked to help with the redesign of an open source game over at Sourceforge

http://talon.sourceforge.net

and was wondering is I could get some of your opinions on some mockups that I've knocked up for the project

http://chris.lineages.co.uk/talon1.jpg
http://chris.lineages.co.uk/talon2.jpg

A person on their forums had suggested a minimal sort of governmental/corporate look which lead to ....

http://chris.lineages.co.uk/talon3.jpg

Anyway I'd be grateful for any feedback - what do you think of colours/various elements/navigation overall layout

Thanks in advance

Chris
*******************
http://chris.lineages.co.uk

i like talon2.jpg the most, for whatever that is worth.

#2 looks nice.

Might want to knock the size of icon down next to "main menu" and other places so it doesnt conflict with the main logo.

#3 looks very star trek

based on a few comments here are a few incrementally changed versions for your comments and criticisms

4&5 are based on Version2 - moving main menu from column to horizontal row - changing main graphic (in 5)
http://chris.lineages.co.uk/talon4.jpg
http://chris.lineages.co.uk/talon5.jpg

6 is based on Version1 - taking laural leaf from 3 and injecting a bit of colour (blue).
http://chris.lineages.co.uk/talon6.jpg

now, i like talon5.jpg the most- but i would remove the logo next to "mainmenu" because it looks weird seeing three of them in a row like that.

Have you thought of using an image of a hawk or bird's claw to represent "Talon"?

like the #5 best as the other logo's look a little stayed - or a bit like the 'investing in people' logo, the triangle in a circle is nice.

Where did the idea for the logo come from and how did you develop it through from your first thoughts?

the colour in #5 are also nice - much better than the cream and red/deep blue which seems a little plain. the images may better used as smaller headers in the main area and tone down the latest news a bit so that its not over powering the right hand side, maybe slimer with slightly smaller text than the main area will help.

Thanks guys, the laural leaf logo - I've thought of adding an eagle swooping to it but so far haven't found a suitable graphic to base it on.

As for the more contemorary logo the idea for that came from basically - a google image search for 'Talon' which gave images like...
http://www.romansinsussex.co.uk/dba...lfristeagle.jpg

this gave me the basic shape that i was looking for - however I didn't really like it on its own and then the idea came to me to put it inside the O of TALON as in mockup1. I thought that worked quite well - I widened it to better suit being inside the O. Putting it to the Programmers I got feedback that they quite liked it so I started using the TALON O' as a seperate logo element.

As for the colour of 6 do you guys think it should go lighter/darker/different hue ???

html of a slightly tweaked version of the site are up at

http://talon.sourceforge.net

Any comments guys? - I haven't got round to doing the meta tags beofre anyone tells me ;-)

Thanks in advance

i think it looks really good. this may be a picky comment so you may take it or leave it but i would center the menu within the dark blue area that it is in, or at least try it to see what it looks like.