The SSMB Banner Thread

[bmn]

Right, here's to announce that, if no-one else on the staff is able to take over handling the member banners, I'll be doing so. We will, however, be changing the rules a bit (they'll also be subject to change if they need fine-tuning), but hopefully those changes will enable you to be more creative in your designs.

 
The new rules regarding content:

• Must be based on a Sonic Team product, and must not include fan characters.
  • If no Sonic the Hedgehog characters are included, or if a meme such as Gumball Eyes Sonic is used - especially the latter - the banner will be held to a higher standard. In other words, such a banner won't be considered unless it's very good.
• The name of the Website, "The Sonic Stadium", must be prominently displayed on the banner.
  • You're free to create your own logo or styling, or you can make use of the official logo (PSD/PNG). You can change aspects of the logo, such as colours or layout, as you please.
  • You may use a variant of the name, such as "The Eggman Stadium" or "The Sonic Moshpit", but if you do the banner will be held to a higher standard.
  • If you want to include a slogan, you're free to create your own. Or you can use the official one, "Love Sonic? Love the Sonic Stadium!"
• Consider your target age group to be around the early teens, so no inappropriate or offensive content.
• All artwork must be your own work. Any case of malicious plagiarism will get you blacklisted from banner submission.
  • This means that background art should also be your own work.
  • Non-original imagery (http://board.sonicstadium.org/banners/banner62.png, for example) may be allowed if they are used in creative ways.
  • Your own http://board.sonicstadium.org/banners/banner80.png can be used, if done so creatively.
• Not all banners will be used, and if you submit more than one they should be original in terms of content.
• It should go without saying, but they should look like you put a bit of effort in!

 

Regarding format:

• Banners must have a height of exactly 200 pixels.
• They must have a width of between 700 and 1000 pixels.
• They must be uploaded in a lossless format such as PNG.
  • This is to ensure that we have a good quality image to work with - the format may be changed when the banner is made part of the rotation.
• They can include transparency.
• You can select, or include, a separate background image.
  • The image should be lossless, with a height of exactly 200 pixels, and a width of less than 1000 pixels.

 

So, what's this about a background image?

• Most of our current banners have their own background, so that background abruptly ends on each side of the banner. It doesn't look great.
• You can choose to replace the http://board.sonicstadium.org/public/style_images/ssmb_header_bg.png with a http://board.sonicstadium.org/banners/ghz-bg.png, by mentioning it when you submit your banner. More backgrounds may become available later... especially if someone is nice and makes some for us.
• Alternatively, you can create your own background as a separate image. This image will replace the blue zigzag, and will be tiled horizontally, so if you like you can create a http://board.sonicstadium.org/banners/banner3-bg.png that will repeat across the page.
• The background doesn't have to be a short one, as long as it doesn't go over the width limit.
• Whichever type of background you use, you can use http://board.sonicstadium.org/banners/banner2.png to allow the background to show through.

 

I'm hoping that these changes will give you more freedom to create amazing banners for us, so let's make the forum look even better than it already is

 

I'm likely opening a can of worms by allowing memes, but let's see if we can have nice things for once...

[JezMM]

Yay, so glad to hear this will live on.  Motivates me to make another banner sometime (had a great idea for a summer one but alas feels a bit too late to get decent usage now).

[Lady Soniko]

Erm Bmn, what about animated banners? Do you allow those? And is there a max file size that the banner can't exceed? etc.

[bmn]

Due to the relatively high resolution of the banner, in general animated GIFs will not be allowed. There may be exceptions in some cases though (very http://board.sonicstadium.org/banners/banner93.png images, for example)

 

Animations may be used in shorter background images, though, as long as the effect is a subtle one (twinkling sea, moving clouds, etc) and the filesize doesn't skyrocket. Again, admin's discretion - if in doubt, ask.

 

Filesizes, in general, no limit. If the filesize becomes too high for our liking (undecided yet, but currently thinking if it goes over 100KB), we may attempt to reduce it without hurting the image quality too much, using methods such as losslessly optimising, converting to JPEG or reducing the colour depth.

 

For example, 210KB:

 

Using a reduced colour depth, 62KB:

[Milo]

Glad to hear this is still going. (In which the topic title should be updated. Preferably "The SSMB Banner Thread - Under New Management!" or something.)

 

I might have my banner finished later today.

[Danj86]

Jolly good show.

 

Say...I actually have a question I probably should've asked ages ago. I just need to fill in a little back story first.

 

I've been working on a special SSMB related picture I was thinking would make for a good banner. It's set to feature a large number of SSMB members represented in a type of toon form, in a large group together. It's still incomplete, and I'm aiming to finish it for the 24th of October. SSMB's 13th Birthday.

But will it be eligible, does it fit within the rules?

 

I have considered having it as a background image, while having Sonic and Knuckles in the foreground. I could also try to customize the group picture in such a way that it could be made as an optional background that other members could use. Just to give you a better idea of what I'm talking about, here is how my picture currently looks.

 

What do ya think?

[Milo]

 

Jolly good show.

 

Say...I actually have a question I probably should've asked ages ago. I just need to fill in a little back story first.

 

I've been working on a special SSMB related picture I was thinking would make for a good banner. It's set to feature a large number of SSMB members represented in a type of toon form, in a large group together. It's still incomplete, and I'm aiming to finish it for the 24th of October. SSMB's 13th Birthday.

But will it be eligible, does it fit within the rules?

 

I have considered having it as a background image, while having Sonic and Knuckles in the foreground. I could also try to customize the group picture in such a way that it could be made as an optional background that other members could use. Just to give you a better idea of what I'm talking about, here is how my picture currently looks.

 

What do ya think?

 

 

Looks well done. I think you'll have to modify the canvas so that it fits the dimensions of the banner borders though.

[Carbo]

The banner is supposed to be centered around a Sonic Team product so on that criteria alone it wouldn't pass the cut. Also there's fan characters in it.

That and, as knit as this community is, it's a bit pandering and patronizing to have our own members standing on the forefront of what is supposed to be a Sonic site. It sends a rather bad message to newcomers and adds onto potential perceived favoritism within the community that the site is only here for certain members.

[InfinityAlex]

Oh, sweet!

Guess I should finish my banner now. (Thankfully it matches all the criteria)

[Vertekins]

 

http://i.imgur.com/ohu2anQ.png?1

 

This was a fun banner to make

[Lady Soniko]

It's pretty stretched/squashed and low quality, if you can fix those things it'd be awesome!

[Vertekins]

It's pretty stretched/squashed and low quality, if you can fix those things it'd be awesome!

 

On second thought, the sides seem to detract from the main element and tinypic keeps squashing my images

 

Will try making a revision.

[Frogging101]

On second thought, the sides seem to detract from the main element and tinypic keeps squashing my images

 

Will try making a revision.

 

I suggest using imgur or better yet, Dropbox (as Dropbox don't apply any sort of compression to your images).

 

Oh, you did use imgur. Well, wherever it got squashed it wasn't imgur (in my experience they've never touched the dimensions of an image)

Edited August 16, 2013 by Frogging101

[Debug Ring]

Okay, this isn't the final piece (Quite a bit needs work), but would you guys say the colour of the text makes it hard to read?

If so, what would you suggest?

[ProfessorZolo]

The text? Yes. Although I would say the overly busy background is possibly the actual problem. It's a tad too bright, and detracts from the foreground.

[ASonicFanThatLeft]

So where can I see all the new banners at the moment?

[Debug Ring]

I think this has a less busy background.

 

But it might still be a little too busy yet... I don't know, I'll see...

[ProfessorZolo]

That's MUCH better.

There are still things that could be done differently, but I'd rather not get seemingly preachy.

...Awful lot of people don't like it when I get preachy.

[Crash]

 

Jolly good show.

 

Say...I actually have a question I probably should've asked ages ago. I just need to fill in a little back story first.

 

I've been working on a special SSMB related picture I was thinking would make for a good banner. It's set to feature a large number of SSMB members represented in a type of toon form, in a large group together. It's still incomplete, and I'm aiming to finish it for the 24th of October. SSMB's 13th Birthday.

But will it be eligible, does it fit within the rules?

 

I have considered having it as a background image, while having Sonic and Knuckles in the foreground. I could also try to customize the group picture in such a way that it could be made as an optional background that other members could use. Just to give you a better idea of what I'm talking about, here is how my picture currently looks.

 

What do ya think?

 

 

I came up with this because I felt really bad when hearing that Dan's banner couldn't be used, but, here's an idea, what if its only shown in the personal discussion area? If, of course, that's possible.

Edited August 16, 2013 by The Crash

[AcidGamer]

Oh awesome! I'll be "remastering" my old submitted banner. I look at it more realizing it looks funny when not colored digitally.

Edited August 16, 2013 by AcidGamer

[Aero]

Even though I've already submitted like 2 banners (the last one not being put in the current rotation), I...I'm just not happy with either of them anymore. I mean, I guess the Unleashed one was kinda funny, but I think I'll try something different...

 

lost world banner, anyone?

[Milo]

It's done!

 

 

Click here to check out the banner in full size.

[Aero]

 

now have i improved in banner making or what

[AcidGamer]

BAM! Finished! This was really fun to make. I made sure to work as hard as I could. I feel like doing this more often.

[Uraraka]

NICE! i like em good job acid gamer!