Last night, I posted a question about whether I should review the MLP Forums banners featured atop of the message board. Nine clicked on the poll, and three people legitimately answered why in the comments.

That is more than enough to sway my decision: I will review each weekly banner.

Compared to my other reviews (my most common being a list format for episodes and season overviews), this one will follow a different format. The review will be divided to standardized sections, whose purposes are to breaking down the banner's design and taking a look at it analytically while keeping the review organized, each of which will be in a bold type style. Keep in mind, some comments in one section will overlap with others.

Also, the banners that will be reviewed are the ones from here on out. In other words, the Applejack banner up here and ones in the future. I will not review a past banner unsolicitedly unless:

1. It gets featured again atop the board.
   
2. (If not featured) The designer asks me privately if he or she wants me to review.
   

Any public requests will be ignored. If the banner is a prototype, and if you want me to look at it, send me a PM, and I'll review it privately. These unsolicited reviews are only for published banners.

As of this point (and may change before my first formal review), the review will be broken down like this:

1. The banner
   
2. Composition
   
3. Navigation treatment
   
4. Logo treatment
   
5. Other
   
6. Ideas (for improvement)
   
7. Conclusion
   

The banner

This is an introduction to the review. It will break down the banner's story. What the banner is about and its purpose to my own eyes. If it's a tribute to an episode, I'll dictate so. I'll describe the background, setting, colors, characters, and logo placement. If one of these can't be described, like the setting (like some banners in the past), then I won't describe that at all. I'm breaking down the banner here.

Composition

Where I begin truly reviewing. I'll be dissecting the banner's composition and judge its organization, like focusing on the side instead of dead in the center, "the rule of thirds," and so on. Judgment of depth, placement, and balance will be here, too.

Navigation treatment

Every time the banner changes, so does the color of the navigation, unclicked, clicked, and hovered. The colors for the navigation are there to correlate with the main subject in the banner, sent to the administration in the form of the hexidecimal color code. They will be judged based on this criteria:

1. Does the color match the banner?
   
2. Is the navigation legible?
   
3. Does the color accentuate the main subject in the banner, or does it fight with it?
   

Logo treatment

Each banner has the logo somewhere. I'm a logo designer, and I have a passion for them. The logo will be judged on this criteria:

1. Does it fit in the composition?
   
2. Is the logo legible?
   
3. Is the logo being treated with respect? In other words, does the logo contain special effects (i.e., drop shadows, transparencies, halos, strokes) or not? (If there are special effects, unless it really makes sense and works in the design, expect me to be quite unhappy: Logos are there to tell people what this forum is, not to have it treated with unnecessary effects. Special effects make the logo appearance inconsistent and risks making the logo illegible. Companies like Apple, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, and CNN have very strong brands, and consistency in the signature is one reason why.)
   
4. Regardless of placement (horizontal or vertical), is the logo's proportionally identical regardless of scale? To see the true scale of the banner, check out my review for the logo here.
   

If the logo is different than the default one, like seen in @@Vexx3's banner and @@Kyoshi's Vinyl one last week, the logo will be reviewed, too, and will be given the same criteria as the default one along with how effective it is on its own.

Other

Other comments and critiques of the banner, like the resolution, color, and little details that either make the banner pop out or make it not so tidy and professional.

Ideas (for improvement)

For the flaws featured in the banner, suggestions to improve it and make it better will be presented here. At times, there will be more than one suggestion. Keep in mind, these are suggestions. The designer is under no obligation to listen. Whenever you write a review (or anything, for that matter), you're engaging in a conversation, and suggestions are no exception.

However, there may not need to be so much (or little) improvement. But I may pitch in an idea to make the banner more interesting.

Conclusion

My final thoughts on the quality of the banner.

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Each banner will be reviewed based on its quality. There could be times where I really like the banner, but may be mediocre. However, there may be times where I loathe the banner, but may be really great. Taste and quality aren't interchangeable.

If you can have any ideas yourself, comment below and detail why.