First drafts for some of the member awards

Malte279 · **on:** March 26, 2006, 09:27:21 AM

Hi!
Here are some of the first drafts for member awards for you to agree or disagree on (constructive criticism is welcome as you are the ones who will have to carry those around for a year, so don't be shy

).
Some basic concept of all the awards is that they all measure 400X100 pixels. They all have some kind of image (which hopefully befits the nature of the award) on the left while the right is blurred. The name "Gang of Five" is written in letter size 12, the title of the award in letter size 14. The original idea was to have the words of all awards written in the same (quasi golden) color. It doesn't work out in front of all backgrounds and elaborate shading of the letters or the like don't quite work out at this size. Maybe the names of those who receive the awards should be added to the awards as well once they are issued. Anyway, your thoughts, opinions, criticism, or support are appreciated.
Here's the friendliest member award:

Here's the most helpful member award:

Here's the land before time philosophers award:

Here's the best role play gamer award (which is not yet approved by the community so whether or not it will be issued is not yet certain):

Cyberlizard · **Reply #1 on:** March 26, 2006, 11:25:07 AM

I like them all!

Malte279 · **Reply #2 on:** March 26, 2006, 12:34:20 PM

Here is a draft for the best fanart award:

By the way, if any of you have suggestions for other awards than the four official and the one pending we are having so far, please don't hesitate to make the suggestion.

Petrie. · **Reply #3 on:** March 26, 2006, 03:27:13 PM

Some more samples done by me.

Malte279 · **Reply #4 on:** March 26, 2006, 04:21:27 PM

^ Nice one's Roger

You know what, we could make creating the awards a kind of friendly competition among all members of the forum. Everyone may come up with drafts for the awards. All those who don't hand in any drafts for awards may vote for the drafts of the members. The drafts which get the most votes will be taken and the one who created them may create and "Awardmaking award" for him- or herself (maybe less frequently posting female members of the board will give us their input too). It would give some people not yet nominated for any award a good chance to get one and it would give us a lovely selection of possible awards to pick from.
What do you think?

action9000 · **Reply #5 on:** March 26, 2006, 04:25:29 PM

First off, let me just mention how happy I am to see you guys working on these banners

Great work, both of you! I am going to comment on what I noticed in these images, from the viewer's perspective.

To Malte:
I like how all of your banners are the same time.
Your choices of images for each of the backgrounds are very well-suited to the awards.
The transitions from the original image to the extended part of the banner, where much of the writing is, is generally very good. I realize that such a transition is difficult to achieve, and you accomplished it very well, especially in your "Friendlist Member" image.
There appears to be a little bit of a "seam" on the Philosopher and the Role Play Gamer images, but it doesn't detract from the image quality, and it probably makes the text easier to read.

To RogerRabbit:
Excellent choices of images, and good use of word art / consistant fonts.
The variation of the physical size of the images takes away some of the consistancy of the banners, and I wonder if, perhaps, the Best LBT Artwork banner is too high. I always pictured banners as long and narrow, so they took up very little space in the post. Compared to the other banners, ths LBT Artwork banner, while it looks very nice, it is significantly taller than the others. The text in all of your banners is very easy to read.
Your "Friendliest Member" image looks fantastic, and I love the use of Rooter in the Most Helpful banner.
The "LBT Philosopher" image looks very nice, though the thought bubbles detract slightly from the image. Perhaps if you wrote the words "LBT Philosopher" underneath the "Gang of five", on the left-hand side, in a similar font used on the "Friendliest member" or "Most Helpful", it may blend a little better. I don't know for sure, I'm just speculating.

Petrie. · **Reply #6 on:** March 26, 2006, 04:26:07 PM

Sure....all members...go for it. Design some stuff.

F-14 Ace · **Reply #7 on:** March 26, 2006, 04:30:17 PM

I like all these.

Malte279 · **Reply #8 on:** March 26, 2006, 04:31:04 PM

I did some minor edits about three of my awards. I didn't like the philosopher being the only one with a blue script while all the others were yellow. Therefore I edited the color of three awards so each one now has an individual color to it. This should make the awards a bit more individual while the uniformity in size and layout is kept. This would be the more "colorful" selection:

Cyberlizard · **Reply #9 on:** March 26, 2006, 04:33:11 PM

Does Picture It count?

Malte279 · **Reply #10 on:** March 26, 2006, 04:45:27 PM

What is picture it?

Cyberlizard · **Reply #11 on:** March 26, 2006, 05:16:19 PM

A photo editing software. The exact same thing I used to make the Ichy/Dil pic.

Malte279 · **Reply #12 on:** March 26, 2006, 05:28:08 PM

Sure. Roger and I made our drafts with different softwares, I don't see why any should be outlawed. I only suggest we use movie screenshots rather than photographs for the awards.

Tim made some very good points about distinct seams in both the philosophers and the Best RPG Gamers award draft I posted here. I made two new possible drafts for the RPG award (I need yet to do something about the philospher). Here are the two new drafts:

Cyberlizard · **Reply #13 on:** March 26, 2006, 06:43:37 PM

I would be happy to post my Best RPG award on here but this forum isn't letting me upload ANYTHING.

Malte279 · **Reply #14 on:** March 27, 2006, 02:54:12 AM

Neither are we uploading our awards to this forum. They must be hosted elsewhere and linked to this page. In case you don't have a picture host, please send your awards to me (malte279@arcor.de). Unless the awards are huge (I don't suppose so) I can host them for you

Malte279 · **Reply #15 on:** March 27, 2006, 11:34:17 AM

Action9000 rightfully pointed out the very distinct seam in the LBT philosophers award. I created an alternative version in which (for obvious reasons) I had to change the color of the script. In the final versions of the awards I mean for every script color to be used only once. Here is the alternative philosopher:

And here is a first draft for the most proactive member award:

Nick22 · **Reply #16 on:** March 27, 2006, 11:52:30 AM

All of those look really nice! Props to everyone who made them. Perhaps the winner could be given a choice of sig? like having 3 possible sigs to choose from.

Petrie. · **Reply #17 on:** March 27, 2006, 02:29:56 PM

Ooooh...I like that role play one where Petrie and that imaginary dino buddy are flying.

Malte, you may not have had photoshop long, but man, that's good!

Cyber, uploading in the GOF has been permanently disabled. You'll have to find your own image host. I use photobucket and I've never had issues with them in months of service. (http://www.photobucket.com) If you don't like registering for stuff, then send whatever you have to me and I'll host it.

Nick, umm...I don't think we're going to be doing that.

Malte279 · **Reply #18 on:** March 27, 2006, 04:05:41 PM

Here are two new drafts:

I hope you didn't take them to seriously

I created two more (serious) awards which are meant for a possible "creative" award, but that award is pending. I don't suppose they will be needed.

Malte279 · **Reply #19 on:** March 27, 2006, 04:54:06 PM

And here is a bit more from the proactive front: