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

- [Personal Finance & Money][1]
- [Movies & TV][2]
- [Photography][3]

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][4]
- [Interpersonal Skills Beta][5]

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

- [Puzzling][6]
- [Academia][7]

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

Here's (a [link][8] to) a collection from shutterstock. The [expansive panorama of the Rijksmuseum Library][9] 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.


  [1]: https://money.stackexchange.com/
  [2]: https://movies.stackexchange.com/
  [3]: https://photo.stackexchange.com/
  [4]: https://lifehacks.stackexchange.com/
  [5]: https://interpersonal.stackexchange.com/
  [6]: https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/
  [7]: https://academia.stackexchange.com/
  [8]: https://www.shutterstock.com/search?searchterm=old%20library&search_source=base_search_form&language=en&page=1&sort=popular&image_type=all&measurement=px&safe=true
  [9]: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/amsterdam-netherlands-january-28-2017-panoramic-575506906