help on header bar design/look - for those with a good eye ;)

I posted in here before about the new site I am designing. I have done most of it, but I am still not happy with the grey header bar:

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii106/fadetoblack22/site-1.jpg

I've had a hard edge and now I have a soft edge. It still doesn't look right. Can someone suggest something?

Feel free to play around with it in photoshop

 

try using a blue colour overlay set to soft light...

 

It may look a bit better that way. I can't decide, but it doesn't really solve my problem. It just changes the colour.

 

I dont think it looks bad, but if anything makes it look akward to me, its that between the bottom of the gray header bar, and the blue line (with the sportsbook link) there is a white space in between. maybe you could do something with that, or have the gray bar come down to the blue and see how it looks

edit: or now that I think about it, get rid of the gray all together and/or put a professional looking image as the header, since the rest of the site is pretty clean.

 

I agree with Chaos. Try getting rid of the gradient and use a plain white background for the header. IMO it would fit better with the clean design you have for the rest of the page.

 

I tried it and it looked terrible. I will try and post an image later.

 

Here is what it looks like with a white top:

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii106/fadetoblack22/site1.gif

It think it looks lacking something now.

Edit: I tried it with a blue tint and I think it looks better:

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii106/fadetoblack22/site3.gif