Thread: New banner development

GO HERE

http://img131.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dv46tp.swf

hrm. i liked where the one by Tornado Joe was going, and i liked the comet effect and twinkling stars in lucid83's, but the prior is probably more like what i think would work here.

so let's see....i don't think i like the 'star-emerging' effect. well rather, i do like that, but the night sky in general i think is too dark for the forum. what if that was removed, and then it proceeds with the title like it currently does in joe's flash. next, instead of those things (comets?) wisking by, how about moving clouds, both behind and in front of the title? like, well, uh, i guess what immediately comes to mind is the opening sequence to the super nintendo game LAGOON. anyone played it? i think something like that would be pretty cool. we might need the banner to kind of fade out a little bit (sort of like the darkness setting in as it currently does) so that the loss of accord between the added clouds and the ones in the current banner wouldn't be painfully obvious.

also, the clouds moving would loop, so that the whole animation was not looping (too distracting). oh...and we'd need 'lucid dreaming forum' to appear.

so, let's hear some more thoughts!

I like both Lucid83's and Tornado Joe's, I would prefer Tornado Joe's over Lucid83's if it didn't loop the whole thing. For instance if Tornado's banner just started looping when the Dreamviews appeared in the banner. It should just loop the shooting stars(?) going by.

I think on lucid83's the colors need to be changed. The purple is not working.

Ok, wasn't sure where we were at with this, but I took some of the feedback and came up with the following.

DV Banner comp v2

Originally posted by icedawg
how about moving clouds, both behind and in front of the title? like, well, uh, i guess what immediately comes to mind is the opening sequence to the super nintendo game LAGOON

Not familiar with the game - but the Simpson's intro came to mind - might try that next.

hey tornado.

for whatever reason, i'm liking the stars more in this banner. since i already have the header customized to identify the difference between morning/night (vis-a-vis the salutation), why not have a nighttime banner and a daytime banner? sure sounds like a great idea to me...have some variety.

i think the one you've got now is great for the nighttime version, aside from the font for 'lucid dreaming forum.'

there might be a problem though in keeping some of the functionality of the header, along with the flash; i.e. depicting the person's avatar and the saluation atop the banner. that's something i don't want to compromise. i know it could be easily fixed by separating them from the flash so that only the centre cell is a flash animation, but that wouldn't look right with clouds scrolling across (which is what i really want for a daytime animation). i don't know a whole lot about flash, so i'm not sure if we'd be able to superimpose the aforementioned upon the flash.

thanks a lot for all you effort!

Hey ice,

well, whatever code you use to load each person's avatar into the spot could be used right in the flash piece itself - I'm sure. I think I could have an empty movie clip positioned where the avatar is now and use the loadMovie function to pull in whatever variable (avatar) is set. If not, there's other ways. One thing I've learned about Flash is - it can be done!

Daytime banner? Yeah, that would be cool. I'd probably still like to keep it kind of omnious looking, though. Not a typical blue sky... it might end up looking a bit plain - don't ya think? As for the clouds drifting by... maybe I can come up with some sort of design where the clouds would kind of "fade off" into the edges of the frame. That way, you could keep the way the avatar image is (with the same background as flash banner) and the clouds would just fade out before reaching the edge. Sounds complicated? I'll try to mock something up if I have time.

Originally posted by Tornado Joe
Daytime banner? Yeah, that would be cool. I'd probably still like to keep it kind of omnious looking, though. Not a typical blue sky... it might end up looking a bit plain - don't ya think? As for the clouds drifting by... maybe I can come up with some sort of design where the clouds would kind of \"fade off\" into the edges of the frame. That way, you could keep the way the avatar image is (with the same background as flash banner) and the clouds would just fade out before reaching the edge. Sounds complicated? I'll try to mock something up if I have time.

hrm. i definitely don't want the daytime banner looking ominous...too many people already associate 'black arts' w/ lucid dreaming, so we're hardly going to perpetuate that myth...so I don't want anything darker than what we already have. i'm not wild about the clouds fading out, especially considering a smaller banner is necessary for the 800*600 folk (you'll see it appears if you bring your resolution down that small). in that case, the clouds would essentially appear & disappear right away almost.

i suppose, if it turns out the avatar and salutation won't work with the banner, i could just have the flash banners displayed prior to logging in, and then the current static one once logged in.


any thoughts from anyone else?

hello, let's get some opinions happening in here! or someone whipping up the daytime banner with the passing clouds! i want to get this rolling...we've had a banner that says 'lucid dreaming forum' above the main site (i.e. not the forum) long enough, and it's time to get this sorted out!

Well until a new header is designed, here's one that doesn't have the word "forum" in it.



Icedawg, would you still like the text "lucid dreaming" in there? I could add that or any other text. The font looks like Trajan Pro. Who's the original designer of this header? We could get rid of the graininess if we had the original graphic most likely. Or, actually, I could try going over it with the smudge tool. A cutout filter might work too.



Yeah, I think that's the font. ;)

thanks Ex Nine, that looks great! right now i'm trying to work on a flash solution though. well not me personally, because i haven't much ability in regards to flash, but tornado joe has done up a 'nighttime' flash banner for us, and i'm going to post an announcement seeking a 'daytime' flash banner as well.

Dylan was the one who did the banner for us in the first place, but he's a hard guy to get a hold of. anyway, i rather liked the 'staying up all night' catchphrase, so i threw it up on the main site! those with 800*600 resolutions won't get to see it though because there's a separate image shown for them (mountain_logo_800.jpg, i believe).

Anyway, thanks a lot.

Hey, no problem. It didn't take long at all. Besides, I think this is a good time to start learning Flash again.

Originally posted by icedawg
anyway, i rather liked the 'staying up all night' catchphrase,

Honestly, I was preparing to make some kind of sexual innuendo after someone responded! But if you're seriously looking for a motto/slogan/catchphrase, might I suggest looking at an array of choices. You never know how some things might look together until you actually see them together. But do not succumb to the illusion that these are the only choices available.

Here's an 800 version of the blank one, for those who want to play around. It's the same height as the 1280 but narrower.



And some text.

That's a pretty cool slogan you came up with, Ex! I'm no good at animations, so I'll have to sit this one out, but I've been thinking of some logo ideas. ld4all has this one:

Not sure what you had planned with the links to the main site, I got kind of confused there, but we could always stick our logo opposite the avatar on the title bar over the forum. Clicking on it would bring you back to the homepage (not the forum).
You could even use it as a link or an animated menu if you wanted. Well, I'll get some concept sketches from some friends and work on a few, and post 'em when I finish 'em.

Well, I played around with a few logos, and I derived a very very very sketchy idea for an animated banner. Instead of clouds, we could play on the 'All Night Long' idea and do something like this:
Sun/Moon Banner

It looks crappy, but hopefully it gets the general idea across. The speed and location of the moon/sun bugs me, but that's easy to fix. We could change the sun/moon/background into photographs as well, just toss them in instead of the symbols there already. Wouldn't take long, either. Just a random idea...

EDIT: Also, forgot to mention, I DO have a few ideas for just a simple logo, I just got distracted making that cheezy-looking sample flash banner. Since I've posted this all pretty recently, there aren't any replies, but IF you decide that a logo would be nice, I've got a few ideas to play around with in Illustrator. It'll take longer, since Illustrator isn't quite as user-friendly, but I can have them finished in an hour or two if you want 'em.
Right now I need some sleep though, so tally-ho and off to bed.

Well, I just made a banner that I think is a crisp new look for DV. It doesn't follow the daytime nighttime theme you asked for, but I still like it. It is slick and professional enough to fit with our theme (just change the green to the saturation/hue of your fitting) and put it in. Also, I included the scanlines and brushed metal look in coordinace with the forum. Hell, I'll include some alternate banners. I hope you consider using one of them.


Brighter Green
Paler Green
Brighter Blue
Paler Blue


EDIT: Banners in action

Darker Color
Lighter Color

Hope you like!

-Eric Estrada <3[/b]

Hey, To-Joe, I just saw your SWEET flash intro-thingy -- dude, I think that alone would rake in like, five-thousand people alone.

83, yours is super cool 8); Tsen, yours is super cute.

Anyway, Wa -- er, Eric, yours is (are?) totally LMFAO.

Hey, I added two pictures of what the banners look like on the top of the page. I didn't add the advatar or the "good afternoon" thing, but they would look nice with it. Check it out!

I don't know, that banner looks rather empty and mechanical. I mean, it's too simple and er...un-amazing. (Sorry, I'm tired and I can't think of words right now)

Alright, I finally got to upload the "daytime" version of the previous banner I did (I keep my misc. files on a free server (Netscape) and unfortunately "free" also means UNRELIABLE!) I uploaded the files to my AOL space for now. Sure wish we could have that DV ftp runnin.

Ice,
Ok, I realize the daytime banner isn't quite what you described as far as the rolling clouds effect. I wasn't able to view the sample you posted - but either way, this is just another idea. I thougth it would be consistent with the night version. Maybe it will give others something to go on.

Fonts? I don't know what you have in mind. Is there a particular font you like or style maybe? Let me know, I got quite a collection of them - at least for mac.

Enjoy!

DAY:
DV Day Banner

NIGHT
DV Night Banner

Am I the only one who sees the problem with this idea? It's a great banner in regards to its aesthetics, but its not very practical. I dunno about you, but I open pages fast and then take a quick peek at the thread then close it. Also, I scroll down fast enough so the about 90% of the time I will only see the beginning gradient before putting it out of my view. It'd be pretty annoying for it to start over with such a long thing when people only visit a page for such a short time. It's like having a tune you really like as a cell phone ringtone. No one wants to wait for the whole song to play before picking up the phone. Especially when the song has a beginning intro type thing that goes on for 10 seconds. I dunno, just my opinion.

I scroll down fast enough so the about 90% of the time I will only see the beginning gradient before putting it out of my view.[/b]

Well yeah, personally I'd recommend using the Flash version on the main home page - since new visitors have way more information to read on that page anyway and will likely spend more time there. Once someone is signed in, we could go with a still version of whatever we come up with for the "interior" of the site. This would also help in page loading time.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Tsen, cute banner but it's not what I'm looking for.

Eric Estrada, if only you could focus your time and effort for good!

Also Eric, I'm not sure about your concerns in regards to the flash being on every page...I don't get where you're coming from? It's just the banner that's flash and after being cached on the user's hard disk it won't slow down anything...I mean you don't have to wait for the sequence to run through before you can access the remainder of the page, and probably no one would. If you're simply concerned that it doesn't accomplish anything to have it run on every page because that isn't why users are viewing those pages, well then we might as well not have a banner at all above all pages right? If I'm missing something, please explain further, but again I don't see the problem; remember, this isn't one of those annoying intro sequences. Think of it as just something to watch and provide serenity while you sit and try to collect your thoughts while writing a post; or, as something that can be easily ignored otherwise.


Tornado, the day one looks awesome! Very nice work. I really want that cloud idea though; I'm just not going to budge on that.

I was wondering a couple things: first, can we replace the font that you are using for 'lucid dreaming forum' with the font we currently use? I believe Ex Nine said it is 'Trajan Pro.' Also, would it be possible to have 'Dream Views' (two words, btw) emerge from behind the mountains and rise up, instead of appearing from the side? Perhaps it could only emerge to a point, so that the bottom of some of the letters remains obfuscated by the mountains. I also might like the current font and size for 'Dream Views' rather than the one you've got...but I'm not sure on that.

Again they look great, but since they are using the current banner which is grainy, they are a little grainy as well. I'll see if Dylan has an ungrainy original. Otherwise I wonder if we need a whole new background. I dunno.

I know the banner is chached into your harddrive or whatever, I'm referring to the fact that it takes so long before the looped DV sequence shows up. Many people don't stay at the top of the page for more than 5 seconds or something, so most people would only see the gradient and the mountains emerging.

I can't see your banners Joe

Originally posted by Ice
Very nice work. I really want that cloud idea though; I'm just not going to budge on that.

Yeah that's cool - I still haven't been able to check out that idea (super nintendo LAGOON opening sequence) you mentioned in an earlier post. I'm not into the gaming scene at all and don't really know anyone who is. I wonder if I might be able to check something like that out at Best Buy or some other electronics store?

can we replace the font that you are using for 'lucid dreaming forum' with the font we currently use? I believe Ex Nine said it is 'Trajan Pro.' Also, would it be possible to have 'Dream Views' (two words, btw) emerge from behind the mountains and rise up, instead of appearing from the side? Perhaps it could only emerge to a point, so that the bottom of some of the letters remains obfuscated by the mountains.[/b]

Yup, I these could be done. I'm pretty sure I got the Trajan font in my collection somewhere. Any idea on which font is used for the title itself (Dream Views)?