edit: couldn't get UTF-8 branch symbol to be properly displayed here, but this is how it looks:

http://i.imgur.com/zuq24gV.png?1

  function fancyPrompt {

   local bgBlue="\[\033[48;5;31m\]"
   local fgBlue="\[\033[38;5;31m\]"

   local fgWhite="\[\033[38;5;231m\]"

   local bgDarkBlue="\[\033[48;5;24m\]"
   local fgDarkBlue="\[\033[38;5;24m\]"

   local bgDarkGray="\[\033[48;5;237m\]"
   local bgLightGray="\[\033[48;5;245m\]"
   local fgLightGray="\[\033[38;5;245m\]"
   local colorClear="\[\033[0m"

   local branch
   local branch_symbol="\[\] "

   if branch=$( { git symbolic-ref --quiet HEAD || git rev-parse --short HEAD; } 2>/dev/null ); then
   	branch=${branch##*/}
   	export PS1="${bgBlue}${fgWhite}\h${colorClear}${fgBlue}${bgDarkBlue}\[\] ${fgWhite}\w${bgLightGray}${fgDarkBlue}\[\] ${fgWhite}${branch_symbol}${branch}${fgLightGray}${bgDarkGray}\[\] ${colorClear}"
   else
   	export PS1="${bgBlue}${fgWhite}\h${colorClear}${fgBlue}${bgDarkBlue}\[\] ${fgWhite}\w${bgDarkGray}${fgDarkBlue}\[\] ${colorClear}"
   fi

 }

I've been loving a prompt which color codes git branches (which, if I understand right, would be built-in if I used zsh instead of bash) [0], though I have to edit the last line in order to get my history appendation working as well.

0: https://gist.github.com/tobiassjosten/828432