New theme: Banner, sidebars, footer

Question

The new theming does not seem to be to anyone's taste, but we can't go back to the way the site used to look. Some features like fonts and page layout are now set across all sites, and we just have to live with what we've got. However, as a trade-off there is an opportunity here to add design elements in places that previously were almost design-free.

This question is specifically about the borders of the site: the top banner (not the black bar with the icons, the one below that where our site name is), the sidebars/background, and the footer. These can be customized within certain restraints (which can be found in more detail in Catija♦'s announcement here).

Header: The site name must be left-aligned—unfortunately, our lovely logo with the site name centered won't work with the new theme. Any additional graphic will be placed on the right side of the banner, and will slide over and then disappear as the window is resized. For is currently that just means that the "anchoring bar" on the right gets shorter, as we don't have a graphic other than the box around our name and the bars that stick out on either side.
(click image to see full size)
The background for the header can be part of the background of the sidebars (as in the RPG example above), or its own separate element.

Sidebars: The text has to be in black, so the background has to be light and un-busy enough to accommodate that. On some sites the background seems to be static, so that the pattern or fade doesn't change as one scrolls down the page; on others, the background seems to also scroll.

(click to see larger scrolling versions of these)

Footer: The text color options seem to be more variable, so there are more color choices. Again, this can be a continuation of the background in the sidebars or a separate element. The footer can include an illustration, either behind the text if it's legible or "intruding" into the top (as in Worldbuilding) or bottom of the box.
(click for full size)

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So, the question: What could we do with our title banner, sidebars (or background) and footer to improve and extend the theming of the site?

Answer 1

One possibility: Make the page look a bit like an illuminated manuscript. An "illumination" illustration in the side bars in some kind of low-contrast, light-on-light pattern could coordinate with a more elaborate, potentially more highly-colored illumination in the top bar. Illuminated manuscripts aren't specifically English, so perhaps we could especially draw inspiration from the nineteenth century illuminations of William Morris:
(See at Wikimedia)
This style would lend itself to our existing color scheme; the banner could remain black-on-buff with red highlights, and the side bars could perhaps be something like buff-on-cream. We probably could also incorporate some part of the existing decorations into the pattern, or riff on the iconic ampersand, if we wanted to.

Most of Morris's work is out of copyright now, so we could borrow pretty freely. If an actual artist were designing something from scratch, I'll note that rhubarb apparently stands for "advice" in the language of flowers, so if we wanted to include a leaf motif rhubarb leaves might be apropos.

Answer 2

I think rich banners make the new theme work much better visually. Have a look at the following:

• Personal Finance & Money
• Movies & TV
• Photography

These seem to fit in much better with the new theme than our much-adored but now overstretched text-and-tape. In contrast, look at the following text-dominated beta sites - they look clinical and unappealing:

• Lifehacks Beta
• Interpersonal Skills Beta

Even fairly 'small' or plain graphical elements can help:

• Puzzling
• Academia

For EL&U, consider using a (faded? beige? sepia? wood-dominant?) picture of an old library.

Here's (a link to) a collection from shutterstock. The expansive panorama of the Rijksmuseum Library gives a flavour of what I'm talking about. (Please excuse the lack of pictures; I'm not familiar with shutterstock's policies regarding reproducing images on unrelated sites.)

Having an olde worlde picture as the banner would also lend a touch of class to the site, perhaps subtly encouraging questions and answers to live up to it.

Answer 3

Unfortunately, the modern interface does not lend itself to images of delicacy, and ornate details. The layout is an asymmetrical container, the logo must be positioned to the left and the left navigator is the default when a visitor joins the site. The icons on the top bar (Yes, we know this cannot be changed…) are not placed in a symmetrical or aesthetically pleasing order. Thus the banner and the side panels/background need to counterbalance this disequilibrium OR embrace it.

So, inspired by the theme of "words" suggested by 1006a, I was thinking maybe mastheads taken from different newspapers across the world, e.g. the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, and India. This would illustrate how English is a truly International language. Newspapers are vestiges of the past but the English used is (usually) standard, modern and extremely flexible as can be seen in headlines. With skill, creativity, sensitivity and the right editing tools, I believe my proposal could work.

Although I tried searching online for a collage of International English newspaper mastheads, I didn't find any at all and I do not possess a photo editor that allows me to fade the images as much as I would have liked to, so please use your imagination.

   

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Answer 4

A second possibility: Do something with words or dictionary entries as an all-over-pattern in the sidebars in a light, low-contrast color scheme. It could be an image from an old (out of copyright) manuscript, or something more modern like a word cloud (perhaps with some of our tags as the component words). A quick google image search suggests some of what I'm thinking, though we'd probably need much lower-contrast than most of these for the sidebar:

This could perhaps be combined with Lawrence's suggestion of a library image in the banner.