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Spoiler alert: Nostalgia ahead.

I get that every site had its theme standardized few years ago, but I really loved the 8-bit style we used to have for fonts, buttons and labels.

Is there any way to bring something of our old look back and be a little more "original"? The only customizable elements left for a community are the header (mothership <3), the footer, and the badges.

I know that there's probably nothing we can do about it, but it would be great to have.

Edit: Here's an old 8-bit mockup (designed by Jin), for reference:

enter image description here

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    Tagged with feature-request so it'll be on the radar of the company, not that I think it'll make a difference... but you're not the first to express nostalgia for the old design.
    – Wipqozn Mod
    Commented Dec 8, 2024 at 18:11
  • There's a post on Meta SE about theme standardisation - we were lucky to even keep the badge design let alone the fonts etc :(
    – Robotnik Mod
    Commented Dec 8, 2024 at 21:49
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    @Robotnik badges and upvote/downvote buttons should be customizable for every site, come on... We had a beautiful site before that, it's just not fair.
    – pinckerman
    Commented Dec 8, 2024 at 22:21
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    Left Nav, Responsive Design, and Theming next steps - has answers for and a summary of (and links to) the previous talking points when standardised theming was announced (ie the "Response to Feedback" section of the question post). Also RE: Fonts - we might be able to argue for a return to Tempesta - at least in some spots?
    – Robotnik Mod
    Commented Dec 8, 2024 at 22:32
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    @Robotnik that will be a good compromise to me
    – pinckerman
    Commented Dec 8, 2024 at 23:15
  • Why Tempesta, particularly? It doesn't look like the most user-friendly version of a monospace font.
    – Joachim
    Commented Dec 9, 2024 at 12:04
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    @Joachim Tempesta was the font used for question headers (and a few other places) before the SE theming standardisation. I raised it given the crux of this question is a "return" to the more customised theme of Arqade. That doesn't mean we can't look at other options as well :)
    – Robotnik Mod
    Commented Dec 9, 2024 at 23:56
  • Related - Can We Use the Old Chat Theme?
    – Otakuwu
    Commented Dec 10, 2024 at 23:26
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    I personally would love a return to the old theme. I joined after the theme was standardised, so I've never seen it, but it looks amazing. Also, I don't see the need for all communities to look exactly the same as each other when we're not the same. It's (the 8-bit look) also pretty representative of video games.
    – Otakuwu
    Commented Dec 11, 2024 at 22:25
  • If we got some stuff back... it'd be nice to have the red glowing heart back in a more prominent location.
    – Otakuwu
    Commented Dec 12, 2024 at 23:18
  • A lot of the changes probably have to do with meeting certain Accessibility guidelines/laws, so it will probably not be possible to bring something like this back. Someone who's really clever might be able to create a user script one can use to restore a lot of the theming, but that would be a pretty good effort I feel like.
    – Timmy Jim Mod
    Commented Dec 13, 2024 at 14:11
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    @TimmyJim I understand accessibility guidelines, but if Stackoverflow can switch between light/dark theme, devs could add a sort of toggle for new/old design here. It's just a matter of CSS.
    – pinckerman
    Commented Dec 13, 2024 at 17:39
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    @DaemonsMercy I don't mind a dark theme for every site (which would be cool, btw), I'm just suggesting to bring back a customized font and a couple of buttons.
    – pinckerman
    Commented Dec 13, 2024 at 22:14
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    @pinckerman Oh, ok. I thought you wanted to bring back everything (which I also support), not a few buttons/font. That's much more manageable.
    – Otakuwu
    Commented Dec 13, 2024 at 23:08
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    @DaemonsMercy yeah to be honest I'd like the whole nostalgic look and feel :D but I'm aiming to a reasonable goal, at least...
    – pinckerman
    Commented Dec 14, 2024 at 0:14

2 Answers 2

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For reference, here's a 2015 snapshot of the mockup's question in the image with the old style:

A screenshot of the entire page of the aforementioned question, snapshotted in 2015. It has the 8-bit style.

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It might be unlikely, but hopefully this goes somewhere?

On SE’s recent question for how to make the network more fun, I proposed

Let sites have more control over how we look. Arqade used to look amazing and very on-theme. We had a MOTHERSHIP ask-question button!

Then all sites were changed to look pretty similar to each other (even though they're really not). Could we have more control over the way our sites look?

Edit: SE made a new proposal about site customisation? Hard to tell where it’s going, but it looks like it’s aiming for making sites more similar, so it’s probably not going to happen.

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