Back on August 6th 2025, I put together a few ideas in Photoshop CS4 to redo the banner for our website. After making some tweaks and finally getting around to it, I’m proud to present the new one! Be sure to clear the browser cache for our website if you’d like to see the new banner.
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(New site banner as of October 14th, 2025.)
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(Our site banner from June 15th, 2025 – October 13th, 2025)

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After polling individuals in our FaceBook group, the responses mostly favored design number 8 – a minimalist approach. At first I really wanted to do my original idea, which was a rounded rectangle made up of colorful shapes, gradients, with a version of the existing banner inside it. Now the new banner is up, I’m really glad the community picked this one, it’s grown on me.
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(The original idea in mind. Perhaps it can be used elsewhere?)
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Problem with the old banner

A while ago, someone pointed out the jagged letters on the June 15th banner. The letters were rasterized, then the original text layer was deleted, which probably resulted in this. I figured it wouldn’t be so visible being such a small banner, but when you zoomed in it was pretty obvious.
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So in the process of looking into this and having a burst of creative energy in Photoshop, I looked into it. I didn’t want to warp the existing DNA of the site, while at the same time catapulting things forward as much as can be.

• The site theme uses a 596 x 116 resolution banner, so there is limited space to work with.
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• Only way to make letters look smooth is to increase the font size.
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• By removing “Welcometo” in front of “Low End Mac”, it serves as a much cleaner look.
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• “Since 1997” has been changed from Yellow to Dark Blue text, and a drop shadow has been added for legibility.
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• The Macs and the iPad are still there but faint, putting the focus on the name of our website.
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A content-focused design

The idea is to make steps toward a less cluttered, more content-focused, legible, readable, organized, and functioning Low End Mac website. By taking out distracting elements while evolving a familiar design, we can demonstrate this vision – one Apple byte at a time.