OK, time for me to intrude on the Graphics forum with another "help Mike and win something" thread!

I'm looking for someone to help me make some small banner advertisements for the navigation of the new Shurtugal version.

Here is the new version:

http://shurtugal.com/SQUIGGLES/

Here are 2 minute, horrible ugly mockups of the featureads to give you an example of where I'm going with the idea (ignore everything else, most of the copy/paste stuff was us fooling around with display ideas):

http://i44.tinypic.com/21d575.jpg

So basically, I'm looking for small ads that size for various site features. As you can tell, the new layout is very simplistic but also very nice on the eyes and appealing. I don't want to make any sort of graphics for the layout that go outside of this, so any ads would need to look nice but keep it fairly simple and match the rest of the layout in terms of design. I am of course open to opinions, feedback, suggestions.

Anyone interested in trying to figure this out with me? Anyone who really contributes to the ads or ends up making them will get something free & signed by Christopher, like a few pictures or an audio book or something.

I like the new layout, The darker golds and blue hues really create a better sense of depth.

Anyway I'm not exactly sure what you want, basically small advertisements for the navigation(?) of the new site?

what dimensions do you need and what do you want to advertise?

Or is this to be disclosed personally if someone is to accept?

I would like to have a shot doing this, my pc is a little messed atm (RAM issue's) but I can get my tools on another pc easily enough.

Do you want something like these:









I tried to make them as simple as possible.

Basically, the features we're looking to advertise are "fan art, inheritance store, shurtugal gear, contests, etc"... my idea was to just make a bunch and with filler text and we can alter the text to fit the need later.

Dimensions (ideally) would be: 334x36

I'd like to keep them all the same size/shape. They can have color as long as the ad itself fits in well with the layout. My mock-up was really basic (and my photoshop skills for the most part are not what they used to be), so everything from the image to the font are just examples, certainly not what I want to actually feature on the site.

Here's that mockup:


(I guess it's hard to see the rounded edges, but yeah, if you look at the image I gave with my first post you'll see how the rounded edges are there to match the rest of the layout)

Yeah, if you need more info H.N or anyone else or if you need a better way to communicate with me about it, let me know. I reaaaally need these as soon as possible (ie, the new layout releases tomorrow so I'm desperate here).

Made two simple ones, not quite sure if it's exactly what you're looking for.





My apologies for them not being png's, my Photoshop refuses to save them in png.

Yeah, those are exactly what we're looking for. Those look really nice.

Nice stuff Breakfast =D

I gave it a shot. Sorry for the square corners, I'm using GIMP so I can't save in PNG right now.

Jeeze, DD... is there anything you CAN'T do? Those look great. Only thing about the second one is that it's a bit hard to read. The text is the most important part of the little ad things so if you could make them a bit easier to read?

Maybe if I got you guys a full list we need, we could divide it up and give each person a few different ones, that way we have a ton of ads, all nice and different looking?

I made a set of 5 after considering the colours,hues and the simplistic look of the site, I went against different pictures because of this simplistic look.
These are templates, so no text ( I don't know what topics you want anyway).

Yeah, I can make some better ones tomorrow that fit the size dimensions. A full list would also be great. Do you want us to all use the same font, or do you want them all to be different?

Hey Mike you should post uniform pixel dimensions for people to follow, because I don't see any, or else my brain is too fried.

So far, here are the pages I need them for:

Inheritance Wiki
Other Fantasy & Scifi
Paolini Recommends...
Paolini's Questions of the Month
Inheritance Fan Art
Inheritance Cycle Store
Shur'tugal Gear
Inheritance Contests
Recommended Reads
Fan Fiction
Book 4 Theories
Donate & Support Shurtugal

Here's one I just made. I'd make more tonight but I have a lot of work to do.

Would something like this work? I think it shows out more against the darker forum skins. The dimensions are a pixels off, but I can fix that later.

Gah I still don't know the pixel dimensions and they need to be the same sizeee. My design OCD is going crazy.

You can stop the panic now.

^He said 334x36.

See that everyone? 334x36

Oh, lol okay, mtb's on it nevermind.

Just to make it easier and stuff, could we just all do them without text so that the banners can look stylistically different, but not too different? Like, it's gonna be obvious you did this if every single banner will have different text...

Yeah, I'm not really sure what to do about the varying texts....

how about this:

Everyone please post a copy of each mini-ad in the following formats:

- with text
- without text

Also, please try to keep all of the rounded edges the same size. I used the default rounded edges from the shape tool in Photoshop. They're on my mockup.

Additionally, only ads that have rounded edges that are transparent PNGs will be able to be used. If you can't save them as a transparent PNG, save it as a transparent PSD and I'll go and save them myself.

Let me know if there's anything else you need to know.

Taken straight from the layout, hope it works fine:

I just posted mine without text so that if you do use them you can add the text yourself.