Hello all. Lunchmeats101 here.

As a designer I am obsessed with perfection & symmetry.

Obviously, DSi sites are abundant now, and there are too many to count.

Now I notice lots of things with these sites; speed, optimization, design, and overall appeal.

One thing that made DSiHub unique (In it’s time) was the icon/page-based menu. This appears to have caught on as a trend in several DSi sites, with some good and some mixed results.

Visual details & appeal can make or break a user’s relationship or membership with the site, so it is necessary to make things, well, look nice, in simple terms.

I’ll shut up now, and get to the point. Here are a few design tips:

-When making icon-based menus, make sure the icons are similar and have visual symmetry (I.E. make all icons the same size/resolution, and if you are not making your own icons, try to find icons in the same general “theme”.)

-Nobody likes a layout with everything spread out randomly, it makes it look like an explosion has occurred. To avoid this, make page elements similar in size (Resolution) or keep things aligned similarly with CSS, for example: text-align:right to align all elements within the attributed element on the right side.

-If it looks rough, it’s not good enough. You know that kind of “blocky” look you get when you use a program like Microsoft paint? Yeah. Eww. Anti-aliasing gets rid of this, making edges smooth and sexy. There are many, many different image editors out there that can do this, and I personally suggest GIMP, because it is the closest you can get to Photoshop without paying a cent.

-Try to get rid of any backgrounds in logos or icons. When you use opacity to eliminate everything but the logo image/text, things look a lot nicer on any in-page background.

-Don’t just slap some pre-made features on your site. At least try to format stuff like pre-made chatboxes to fit the DSi screen, or even better, make your own from scratch! (It’s a great learning experience)

-Be aware of tackiness. Don’t put any random colors together, or just put colors together because they are bright. Colors clash. Try to find and appropriate color palette to avoid collisions of the visual spectrum.

Of course, you don’t have to follow these suggestions. That’s just what they are, suggestions. It’s always great to do your own thing and find new ways to leap over obstacles. That’s how the world goes forward. Anyway, bye-bye for now, and happy designing.