Re: Emoria Character Icons

[Gadreille]

My favorite is #6, I can't see all of Weiss so it's hard to judge. I do think I prefer something smaller and more subtle.

I know Kalon is against the idea of color coding, but I really wish that is how it would be constructed. I tend to see the color and immediately link the color to a specific person. For example, I see pink and I know it's Sigh's character. Light Blue=Kathryn Lacey. Kalon=Forest Green. Ryona=Purple. My brain works faster that way than trying to remember who is who. I dunno, it might just be my brain that works that way though.

[Kathryn Lacey]

Six is my favorite, too.

No. It's not just your brain that's working that way. Mine's been doing it, too. XD

I don't know why colour coding is so bad if everyone has the same graphics style. I mean, maybe the thing could be coloured with a person's associated colour and trimmed in silver or gold ((whichever one the person prefers))?

[Sighlent]

Ok so I have REALLY been racking my brain on how to integrate everyone's ideas together. The gold. The colors. Plus other little tid-bits here and there with what I've been doing. And do not ask me WHY but it all came together on Gunneh's. I mean well just look. I hope you guys really approve because I spent about 4 hours on this thing...when really it was simpler than that but I was just messing around with everything so I could see what would work.

Here it is you guys:

[Kathryn Lacey]

Personally, I really like it. I only have two qualms: 1. The font is a little difficult to read. It may be the colour, but it could also just be the style. 2. The forum cuts off the end of it.

Otherwise, I really love the boarder you have around the portrait itself, and I really like the graphics. I was afraid that maybe number six would be a little too feminine for the guys, but it works really well for them, too, now that I see it.

[Sighlent]

Personally, I really like it. I only have two qualms: 1. The font is a little difficult to read. It may be the colour, but it could also just be the style. 2. The forum cuts off the end of it.

Otherwise, I really love the boarder you have around the portrait itself, and I really like the graphics. I was afraid that maybe number six would be a little too feminine for the guys, but it works really well for them, too, now that I see it.

The text was very hard to put on over that gold. Just because the gold is so bright and dark at the same time. If that makes sense. No worries about the size though! I saved a template to where all I have to do is insert the pictures and do the colors which can easily enough be re-worked in Gunneh's case. I also now know to delve under the size I did for this one.

[Kathryn Lacey]

It makes sense to me. I've done enough editing of things, trying to add text to them that I can understand.

Maybe you should try doing the graphic part in silver instead of gold? That may help the text stand out more and be easier to read?

[Sighlent]

It makes sense to me. I've done enough editing of things, trying to add text to them that I can understand.

Maybe you should try doing the graphic part in silver instead of gold? That may help the text stand out more and be easier to read?

I could try that. But I'm afraid that the white might blend in to well with that...I guess I could always substitute the white for another color. I'll have to see.

[Sighlent]

Silver does NOT work. I tried but it just didn't fit.

*Edit: It just blends too well into the background of the thread along with certain character colors.

[Sighlent]

Yeah I've been toying with the silver for the past few hours and nothing. It'll have to be gold if I do it that way. I"ll just have to figure out something to do with the text. :S

[Gadreille]

Perhaps a duller, more brown-gold rather than yellow-gold would do the trick?

& drop shadow the name instead of the white engraved look?

[Kathryn Lacey]

Have you tried a bright silver like what Weiss did with what his version was? He had a white outline around it, and it looked really subtle and nice. I actually think I prefer having it blend into the background a little because they may be too distracting when we're trying to read others' posts. You know?

That bright yellow-gold is just... too much for me, personally.

[Gadreille]

Is there a way to email the .psd format of the image, so that I may play around with it? Just a suggestion to get some of the weight off your shoulders

[Weiss]

[Continues butting into the thread that has nothing to do with him.]
Before I get too far into it, what do you all think of something like this?

[Dax]

that is actually very, very nice, lol.

I like it, for sure.

[Kathryn Lacey]

Holy crap, Weiss! I love that! That's really great! My favorite ((of course)) is the silver/white one, but those are very streamlined, and they're small enough that they probably aren't cut off by anyone's browsers. They're also not gaudy or too attention grabbing.

I've always loved simplicity, personally. I'm pretty much sold on that, but others' opinions are necessary. I think it's perfect, though. It has a fantasy feel, and it highlights each character. Each character may also have their own coloured portrait background that would go with either gold or with silver with great ease.

[Weiss]

Just so everyone can get a feel for the individuality factor, I figured I'd mock up what SIlvone's basic frame would look like.



As you can see, it's just a matter of changing the portrait and making the background color match, but it adds a pretty big spark of customization for each character.

A prospective finished versions of the above:

[Gadreille]

I like that, it is very subtle. I wonder how it will turn out with font?

Very nice!

[Kathryn Lacey]

I'm even more sold on it than I was before I saw the font. The space allows for larger font and fewer words or smaller font and more words, but it's still legible, and it looks very professional. :: drools a little ::

[Loki]

In my opinion, Weiss nailed it. Simple yet stylish with an overall motif that flows very well while being easily adaptable from character to character.

[Kathryn Lacey]

I think another reason why I prefer the silver to the gold is because the silver ((or we could call it white gold ^o_~^ )) has a sort of ethereal glow to it that makes it more interesting. The yellow gold just doesn't have that glow. It feels more material. Does that make sense?

[Kalon Ordona II]

Whatever font we choose, make sure it allows things like áäéëíóúû, etc. (diacritic marks? is that what they're called?)

Weiss nailed the elegant simplicity I think we need.
I did have a much cooler version of the one I made, but I forgot to put it on my flash drive, and anyway I'm not sure it stands up to Weiss's. we'll see. ^^

If we go with Weiss's, what do you guys think of a platinum color? Too much? Right now it kinda looks like some sort of crystal, which is cool. We could also try silver, or make it brighter and say mithril. xD

We might also want to try a version where the text box has less height, depending on the font. I'd rather have everyone's font be the same size, if we can, so let's choose a version that can fit whoever has the longest name and title.

[Weiss]

The diacritical marks can be mocked into any font chosen. I'm rather fond of the ones I chose, since they match the overall frame well and fall into the fantasy feel. I will stress the point that I will not use flashy fonts for the titles, because it detracts from the names and makes the overall image look less appealing.

The only real difference between platinum and silver is that silver is more reflective, so it's shinier. Platinum is dull unless it's rhodium plated. Thus, I don't think using platinum for the frame would be much of a benefit, since I'd basically just be removing the glow effect that gives it the shiny look.

The current color is about as close as you'll get to silver without it being overwhelmingly bright. Too much white condensed into a small area becomes very unappealing, so I layered in a soft violet glow to prevent that. If the lines were thicker, I could have used a satin filter to dim some of the surface area, but that can't be done on smaller lines.

Mithril is silver in color, anyway, so that wouldn't change much. The difference between the metals is that mithril is a higher density (hard) metal, while silver is a soft metal.

For everyone to have the same size font, some instances will cause there to be an excessively high amount of blank space left in the box, which is a very unattractive flaw. The best bet is to simply make the font bigger or smaller depending on the number of characters while confining the overall text to a similar area.

In other words, to make "Weiss" take up the same space as "Kalon Ordona II" you would simply enlarge the font for Weiss and stretch the letters as much as possible without making them look unappealing.

Shrinking the text box or forcing a uniformity in size would mean that shorter names would be inherently less appealing than longer ones, since they would receive less display room. I think Kathryn's idea of using larger fonts for smaller names and smaller fonts for larger names will be a great deal more attractive.

This is all assuming that everyone decides they want to use my frame in the first place. I'm rather interested in seeing what you came up with before a decision is made, since I thought your frame had a more medieval fantasy element to it. It just needed more polish.

[Kalon Ordona II]

Yes, polish was definitely needed on mine. I'll try to get it to you guys today, or tomorrow at the latest. It looks really cool right now. Maybe Weiss could polish it further from there. xD

I undid the embossing, so now it's more flat, but I think it's better that way. It's still 3D-ish.
Right now I've got it looking like silver with some moss or plants growing on it. Sort-of a happy accident, but I think it fits more races this way, and it really gives it a dash of Epic. ^^

As for the font, no worries; I wasn't suggesting a more elaborate one, and that's a good point about just adding the marks in manually. ^^

[Sighlent]

Yeah, we can go with Weiss's. That's fine with me.

[Kathryn Lacey]

While I really love Weiss', I would also like to see what Kalon created because having choices is good. It's also good to view all choices before deciding upon one.

I also like the fonts that were chosen with the frame, personally. They work well with the role play.

Anyway, I'll wait to see Kalon's before voicing my final opinion on the one that would be used for the role play.

[Kalon Ordona II]

and here it is ^^
I'm starting to think that this, too, looks a little pixel-y... but if Weiss or someone likes it and wants to polish it or make some derivative, that'd be sweet! xD

[Kathryn Lacey]

If someone was to polish it and shrink it a bit ((the forum cuts off the end on my computer)), I think it could look really cool. I like the moss effect.

[Kalon Ordona II]

It's 603 pixels wide. If someone shrinks it, be mindful of the dimensions of the picture frame. It needs to be that exact size for the frames and icons to go in.

Kathryn, you've probably told people this before, but are you using a 1024 x 768 screen resolution? Most websites nowadays seem to be arranged around 1152 x 864 or 1280 x 1024.
I normally use 1152 x 864.

We could resize it to 500 or so pixels--as long as the picture frame stays the same--but that might give very little room for words.
I could work on it some more and change the vines around the frame so that they're smaller. That could work.

Edit:
actually, though, maybe the easiest thing would be to pull in the empty space around the middle leaves of the word box.

[Kathryn Lacey]

Yeah. My resolution is 1024 x 768. I got this computer five years ago which could account for it. I think my new laptop is set wider than the desktop monitor, but I haven't looked yet.

[Kalon Ordona II]

You have a laptop?? Sweet!! xD

Yeah, the older computers didn't have the higher resolutions.
Actually I think it goes by the Operating System.

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