The "Headshot" Design
At first glance, it may seem like just a grungy web site design, but the visual look of M2 is more than that. In fact, it's a metaphorical portrayal of something very familiar to anyone who has spent any time playing First Person Shooters:
The Headshot.
Zoom way out, stand back from web page and it becomes clear: The "head" and "ground" of the website are decorated accordingly.
At this point you're probably asking "Why not red?"
My thinking was two-fold. First, I liked the headshot idea but didn't want it to be too overpowering or gruesome. And second, my primary goal with this re-design was to make sure that the maps (and NOT the site itself) was the focus. The gray tones (with just a hint of blue) harkin back to Mapraider's original color scheme without getting in the way of the large map screenshots and videos. An added bonus is that it is neutral enough that it looks good with any map in the database.