Impending website redesign

[swan_tower]

Poll time; please take a moment to answer this, as the more responses I get, the better.

I'm preparing to do a fairly substantial redesign on my website, including (among other things) a visual facelift. I always meant to make it more colorful, but never did decide where I was going graphically -- which, as it turns out, is the subject of this poll. I know I want to change the color scheme and provide some kind of image at the top and/or side(s), but I frankly have no idea what that should be. So I've put together this handy poll, to see what ideas you all have, and whether those nudge me out of my current waffling and into a useful direction. Check as many boxes as you like; if you like several but prioritize one choice over the others, say so in comments.


[Poll #1536672]

Feel free to get as detailed as you like in the comments. (And if you're coming here from outside LJ, you don't need an account to comment, though it will help if you sign some kind of name.) This is a mass brainstorming session, basically, so let's bounce ideas around until something comes out.

Comments

[myladyswardrobe.livejournal.com]

Building on your idea thats taking shape...

How about this:

Pearly grey background.
Artwork itself:
Perhaps a tower in various tones of grey to black. Perhaps its depicted in twilight so you get nice shadows.
Green vines climbing the tower.
Lake surrounding it/just behind and to the side of the Tower?
Swan and celtic motifs on the tower.
Perhaps swans in flight, flying from or to the water?
Moon in the sky?

[london-setterby.livejournal.com]

If it's night time, you wouldn't be able to tell the vines were green, though, would you (in real life)? Just a thought. Otherwise I second this idea!

Sorry to post twice. I think I'm having too much fun thinking about this. I obviously need to go work on my website. :)

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Multiple comments are just fine -- I asked for brainstorming, after all!

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

The issue I keep having with landscape-y ideas (even though I liked the concept of them) is getting it in there without looking a) crowded or b) excessively romantic, in sort of the early-19c sense rather than the genre one. That's why I'm leaning toward a column for the left side rather than a tower: it can fill the space in an organized fashion, fade out under the navbar, feature a swan in the carvings at the capital/upper left corner, and otherwise stay simple. I'm still not sure what I want to do along the top edge of the screen, though.