Design Contest

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Hey all you artists out there!

We're looking for banner ads to advertise Sw-Fans.Net to the public at large! It must not contain any copyrighted materials or pictures of actors and actresses.

Needed sizes:
width X height

468 X 60 px
160 X 600 px

It's not really a contest as more of a desire for help in creating them. :) So, feel free to attatch them to your posts. And get creating!

[Crystal]

Here's my shot at some 468 X 60 banners.

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/7101/swfan1lg.png

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/8876/swfan20fx.png

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/4914/swfanblue6hf.png

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/7046/swfan2blue8wm.png


Since I'm apprently the only one that enterted this "contest" What do I win? :mad

[Mu Satach]

An all expense paid vacation to your kitchen. ^_^

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

I really should be asleep right now, but I can't sleep.


http://s93860457.onlinehome.us/icons/swf1.jpg

http://s93860457.onlinehome.us/icons/swf2.jpg

[Crystal]

Originally posted by Mu Satach
An all expense paid vacation to your kitchen. ^_^


I just went to my kitchen! .. and it didn't cost anything.. wait a minute, am I getting jipped?!?



Originally posted by s'Ilancy
http://s93860457.onlinehome.us/icons/swf2.jpg

I was trying to think up some diffrent taglines, but I couldn't come up with any. :(

Edit:

Another banner

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/4471/swfansbanner229yl.png.

I made the lightsabers. ^_^

[Chimp the Rubber chicken]

I'll probably make something later because Crystal told me too.



and I have never got punch and pie. :(

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Originally posted by Crystal
Another banner

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/4471/swfansbanner229yl.png.

I made the lightsabers. ^_^

Needs more lens flare ;)



The filesize is certainly too large, and the dimensions are not right, but I had the idea at work last night and I just had to do it ^_^;

http://s93860457.onlinehome.us/icons/swfansring.gif

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Ooh I love all the banners. The prize is being put on the list of All My Very Favorite People. :)

[Sudoku]

Originally posted by s'Ilancy
Needs more lens flare ;)



The filesize is certainly too large, and the dimensions are not right, but I had the idea at work last night and I just had to do it ^_^;

http://s93860457.onlinehome.us/icons/swfansring.gif



Eek. The Ring XD

If I can think of some catch-phrases I'll try to make up some on my days off.

[Crystal]

Originally posted by s'Ilancy
Needs more lens flare ;)


Yeah, maybe. I'm just scared to use lensflare. It always look bad when I do.


The filesize is certainly too large, and the dimensions are not right, but I had the idea at work last night and I just had to do it ^_^;

http://s93860457.onlinehome.us/icons/swfansring.gif

That's pretty neat. Yes, animated banners, make them NOW! NOW!



Originally posted by Lilaena De'Ville
Ooh I love all the banners. The prize is being put on the list of All My Very Favorite People. :)

I'm not already on it? :cry

[Saveeradeevaravaravee]

Well, 's not as artistically done as some of the others, but it works, I suppose. I was going for something a little... different.

[EDIT: Taking out the image to save page loading time. You can look at it down there. \/\/]

Any suggestions are welcome :D Hope this works for you.

[Crystal]

Originally posted by Saveeradeevaravaravee
BE THE JEDI

:lol That's cute! The "sw-fans.net" and the tagline is a little hard to read.. but it's a neat idea.

[Saveeradeevaravaravee]

[EDIT: Taking out the image to save page loading time. You can look at it down there. \/\/]

That better?

[Clea Darkrunner]

Any way of putting Chrystals lightsabers behind Saveeradeevaravaravee's text?

Just an idea. If i get some time in my *ahem* copious spare time (sleep? what's sleep? A Jedi needs not sleep!) I'm gonna try and do a Flash for this - thinned down so not to impact load time, of course.

[Saveeradeevaravaravee]

I can work on adding sabers in later tonight, unless Crystal wants to do it - they were her idea, so I'll give her the option. If she doesn't want to, though, I can add some sabers in after class tonight.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

haha, oh that's great, Saveer :D Very clever.

To make the 'sw-fans.net' text more legible, try a simple white stroke sized down to 1, and then maybe anti-alias the text to crisp. The black font color is fine, and with the white stroke, it would help to make it clearer :)

[Khendon Sevon]

http://www.roxxu.com/hosted/khendon/swfans.jpg *adjusted

oh, for reference, I painted it in photoshop. No source images used.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Also any banners that emphasize the fact that we do more here than RP would be welcomed with open arms, and grabby fingers.

And I had Leeloo on my list before - who's Crystal? O_o ;)

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

hmmm. Maybe reducing the stroke size and lowering the bevel. Once you lower the bevel, check contour to make it a little more distinct. Also, maybe darken the background image somehow? Perhaps make a layer of solid black under the bckgrnd level, then lower the bckgrnd level's opacity?

[Shawn]

Or toy with the background's levels.

[Saveeradeevaravaravee]

Originally posted by s'Ilancy
To make the 'sw-fans.net' text more legible, try a simple white stroke sized down to 1, and then maybe anti-alias the text to crisp. The black font color is fine, and with the white stroke, it would help to make it clearer :)

By a white stroke, are you talking about an outline? I'm fairly new to PS, and teaching myself how to do it - I'm not down with the terminology. :D

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Originally posted by Shawn
Or toy with the background's levels.


Adjusting the levels is good too, but that also makes everything in the image stand out more, and to make it so the text is easy to see, lowering the opacity a little helps.


Originally posted by Saveeradeevaravaravee
By a white stroke, are you talking about an outline? I'm fairly new to PS, and teaching myself how to do it - I'm not down with the terminology. :D

No worries :) The easy way to do that is to double click on the layer in your layers menu. that will bring up a new box where you can choose different kinds of modifiers. Stroke is at the bottom of the list.

[Saveeradeevaravaravee]

Well, I went stupid and didn't save in PS format, so all I have to work with is a flat JPG... and I can't find stroke. Then again, I use GIMP instead of PS (because it's free) and so it's either hidden somewhere or requires a plugin. I'll look into it though.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

here's something a little less RPing oriented:

http://s93860457.onlinehome.us/icons/imagine.jpg

[Saveeradeevaravaravee]

Ahhh, there we go. I had to do it from scratch, but I really like how it turned out.

Have two versions for you:

http://www.keegster.net/swfans1.jpg

http://www.keegster.net/swfans2.jpg

I'm more partial to number 2 myself, but that's just me. I'll let you guys choose your favorite.

I also went ahead and put in some lightsabers, and I think that came out well, too. Thanks to Clea/Crystal for the idea.

[Mu Satach]

What would it look like with that light creamy color on the "not your average SW forums" ?

Plus I liked it when it had the little dot selected on Be the Jedi.

Very nice BTW. :)

[Saveeradeevaravaravee]

Oops, forgot that when I remade it. I'll fix it, and try the creamy color on the other text.

EDIT: There we go. All fixed. The creamy text is a little hard to read, though.

http://www.keegster.net/swfans3.jpg

Look back up to see the changed original, with the selection made.

Oh, and thanks for the compliment :D

[Sudoku]

Originally posted by s'Ilancy
Adjusting the levels is good too, but that also makes everything in the image stand out more, and to make it so the text is easy to see, lowering the opacity a little helps.



No worries :) The easy way to do that is to double click on the layer in your layers menu. that will bring up a new box where you can choose different kinds of modifiers. Stroke is at the bottom of the list.


Or you can sacrifice something to the PS Gods and pray that it all works out in the end. ;)

Cute idea, Sav. :)

[Chimp the Rubber chicken]

I think it would look better if you took the drop shadow/bevel/any other effect off the Sw-fans.net and made it a solid color. Black, white, maybe blue something along those lines. Then make it a bit smaller so it doesn't seem as crammed in. Then try to do the same with not your average stars wars forum. Though make it the same size as the sw-fans.net in width or maybe just abit wider..just a hair. Also take off the gradient background and just make it a solid white or grey. It would look alot better. IMO gradients always look a bit odd in banners or adds unless they are really subtle. Also try to align Sw-fans and the sub-title thing by centering the "not your..." under Sw-fans.net. I think it would make it look alot stronger as a whole.

Also I really like the idea. Its pretty original. =)

And sorry about the long post its kind of a habit. =/ Though I think if you did the changes it would be stronger as a whole. =) Even though Gimp is pretty hard to use it should be easy enough to adjust. I think they make a plug-in though that turns the GIMP layout into one that looks just like PS. I can't think of the name at the moment though. You should look for it. I used gimp once so I could help out a friend and try to teach them to use it and its pretty much not user friendly at all.

....now I just need to do one. o_O

[Saveeradeevaravaravee]

I'll look into doing all that tomorrow... I'm tired of looking at the thing now, but I'll take your suggestions into mind when I get back to it.

And I'll try my best to get the subtitle text centered, but it will almost certainly require multiple lines. There's not much text space in there. I'll see what I can do about the gradient, though it might mean another re-do from scratch.

And, don't worry about long posts, at least toward me. In an RP intro, I typically type the equivalent of two pages, sometimes three, so it's kind of my habit, too. That post is actually less than half the length of the last 3 posts I made.

[Chimp the Rubber chicken]

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/9850/banner8yy.png

I'll probably make a couple more. Atleast one with lighter colors, reds or something, because its kind of hard to see some of the detail on lighter skins.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

And another especially for Mark:

http://s93860457.onlinehome.us/icons/stig.jpg

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Here's one of mine. I had them hosted at one point but I think I deleted them off.