I've updated the design in my shop to be less overtly 'goth' with the hope of getting a few more customers. I've also increased the font size. What do you think?

http://www.matazone.co.uk/shop

For trying to make it a "less overtly 'goth'", I counted the word 'Goth' on the page 9 times. Not that successful I fear.

Fair point, but it's tricky when 'goth' is in the name of one of your characters! I was thinking more in the line of aesthetics.

Nice design. It is a bit easier to read than it was before, so I'll give it the thumbs-up.

I think the font size change was a good idea, and I decided that white on black sometimes isn't very easy to follow for large chunks of text.

White on black is much easier for me to read, so much so that your blog is probably the only page that I look at where I don't have to highlight to text to read it. I find reading light on dark much much easier than dark on light.

Really? How unusual. I've been finding the opposite recently, so much so that I'd been thinking of doing a site redesign to try and make it lighter.

You could do that, but then your site would just be the same as all the others. I used to dislike using Word until I found the option to change the page on screen to white text/blue background. So that's the one thing I thank Micro$oft for. It's something to do with dyslexia. I'm not dyslexic but it's a similar thing appearently.

I have a default pale blue background on all M$ stuff. I find it more soothing on the eye than black on white.

The content of the site would still be the same, but I've got to face the facts that this site just isn't as successful as many others in a similar-ish field. Yes, that is obviously to do with the non-mainstream content, but I suspect that the overall feel of the main pages is just too dark for most people's tastes. It works for a teen/goth/alternative market, but that's really quite a small portion of the available internet traffic. I don't intend on changing the type of things that I make at all, but I believe that the presentation could alter the public perception of the site radically.

You should totally redesign the site in bright pink just for the heck of it.

I thought the shop change was refreshing.

I dont think the black bit at the top fits in with the rest of it, and theres a bit at the bottom where the date is in white and doesnt show up well, but apart from that it seems fine. I've never had any problem reading your blog but I can see why others would. The other day I was reading a forum with a dark background and I had to increase the font size because it hurt my eyes

The black bit at the top is there because I couldn't find the right bit of the CSS to change the background and I'd already spent several hours working on the redesign!

I like the current black background for the main site, as I know exactly where everything I like to watch or mess with on a regular basis is. I can see the point of redesigning the shop, and also the same thing for the main page. Lighter would be all right if pink wasn't too dominant (that color only works on Samurai Lapin,) but I'd feel a bit of nostalgia for the old design.

The new background for the shop is lookinggood and it's alot easier to read, though it doesn't match. Nih. It looks good.