Ah, ok, the 2 pixels ARE intentional, it's supposed to protrude. I'll look into it tomorrow, there should be a way around that eventually.

On the topic of web-design again, I enjoyed skinning the forum, but it's not something I do often. In the past I usually found my way around classic layouting. This here was for web basics class 3 years ago, which illustrates it nicely (not exactly cross-browser compatible, best viewed in firefox):

http://users.fh-salzburg.ac.at/~fhs16724/eightbitfactory/index.html

@ #36005A

Hmm, search buttons looks fine in firefox, opera and ie8 for me.

Also, I have to ask, and I don't mean this as a personal attack, but I'm merely curious: If you are not interested at all in graphic design, why did you take on the task of redesigning a website? You seem to have done a pretty great job, so I am surprised to hear you say that. Or did you just mean that "graphical masturbation" is not something you're interested in/inclined to? My apologies if I've misunderstood.

No offense taken :)

The practical side of handling graphic elements (as in heavily abstracted up to geometrical purism) just isn't my cup of tea. It's hard to put my finger on it, I always enjoyed drawing, I never enjoyed working with layout or type, or making logos and the likes. Which doesn't mean I don't admire people who can achieve a strong impression with simplicity, on the contrary. I'm just a bit jealous of them :)

As Atnas put it nicely, it actually doesn't feel the closest to home for me either, even though I made them :D.

@ fil: noted, thanks.

@ saimo: I disagree about the colors. The graphic icons will be history within due time anyway though.

@ sly: Didn't perceive the text-background combination as hard on the eyes so far. What kind of monitor do you use?

Thanks for the feedback!

@ #36005A:

 I'll look into your color suggestions.

Unfortunately I am well aware of the two css issues with Chrome (and other webkit browsers as well I suppose. I don't have access to Safari right now... It would be really nice if you could check on that on your Mac ), I guess I'll have to look into and resort to browser-specific trickery.

The irregular button sizes I am aware of too, but that's beyond my control since the icq and yahoo messenger icons are fetched from an external server, thus inconsistent. About the colors, I used the two recurring saturated colors orange and teal correspondingly to the dominant colors yellow and blue of the AIM and MSN logo respectively in an attempt to assure recognizability without deviating from the skins palette. I think it works.

The 'jump to unread'-button thing is noted.

@ CrazyMLC: I am pretty satisfied with the colors myself. It might be a matter of getting used to as well, but mostly also one of taste . Not that this means anything, but the olden Pixelation was completely clad in deep blue.

@ Moribund: I'm not a fan of the smileys myself. Maybe, in time, they'll get some extra attention too. We already have something in mind with the banner

edit: tried distinguishing the reply/create topic speech balloon. Any better?

Thought so, will do.

Edit: done.

That wouldn't really work for the group-shot, though, that I'll hopefully finish tomorrow evening