DISCUSSION: What do you look for in banner art?

[canisaries]

As I'm intending to start posting a new writing project of mine soon, the question of what I want the banner art to be like has become a pretty important one. I've then realized that this could actually be a pretty neat discussion topic, maybe one that might even give me direction in my own art.

So: banner art, cover art, all that. Have you used or done any? Is it more important for you to have the art show characters, themes or something else? Do you use symbolism, sometimes very reaching *inconspicuous cough*? Do you have specific fonts you like to use? Stuff like this, and anything else relevant you can come up with. I'm curious about your responses. Discuss!

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

I've had two banners, one for 2012!DE and one for 2018!DE.

This is the 2012 version - I wanted to have an 'eyes' motif to be memorable and to communicate that the story was about a number of different pokémorph characters rather than humans. It's certainly distinctive! It was my signature when I was active in 2012 and some users have told me they remembered it after all this time. Eyes are both pretty and visually striking I suppose!

This is is the 2018 version! At the time of writing, you'll all have seen this around plenty of times, since it's been my signature since returning, but I'm uploading a copy all the same in the event that this thread sticks around and my signature changes. This one's a little more thought-through. DE in its current form is no longer a story about a team of six morphs, and now opens with several chapters in which Salem, the central character, is still an un-morphed purrloin (tortoiseshell variant). Salem in this story isn't morphed unwittingly, but is made to understand the path ahead of her before she chooses. There's a lot of self-reflection and wistful longing after elements of human existence - chiefly articulate speech - and I wanted the banner to hint at that. So, the banner depicts a feral Salem looking at her future self in a morphing tank. This communicates, I hope, that the story is about a change in identity, that it's highly introspective, and that it's a moody Mewtwo-esque tale.

I like my banners to show something of the tone and something of the topic. I think the 2018 banner achieves that better than the old one. Besides the rough concept, both times I've let my artist friend interpret the brief at will. In the 2018 banner, the title is in my handwriting at the suggestion of my friend.

 

[diamondpearl876]

I don't have banners made for my fics anymore because I've got so many running that they all wouldn't fit in my sig anyway. ._. I do want to have a single banner made that'll show off all 4 of my main ones and allow for blurbs, but I have no idea how I'd format it. I also don't know if there'd ever be a way to make a graphic that looks nice on all skins so anyone can enjoy them, which bugs me to no end for whatever reason.

In my sig, I've had blurbs with sprites of the 'mons featured in the fics, or little userbars with the fic titles on them, too. But I think banners are more attention grabbing.

Here's a few banners made over the years for Survival Project (which was originally going to be called Dark World Burden)... Unfortunately, I've lost the list of usernames to credit somewhere in the ether, but whoever you are, I still appreciate ya. And I'm sorry I basically just asked for a Sentret and nothing else over and over.

SURVIVAL PROJECT

Spoiler: prepare for lots of sentret

Spoiler: like above but different text

Spoiler: I got told this was too big on a few forums oops

Spoiler: the most throwback of throwbacks for me

Spoiler: oh I forgot Flying in the Dark had one too

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Yo, Canis, bumping your thread and asking you to post a compilation of your sick banners for the hell of it.

 

[canisaries]

Yo, Canis, bumping your thread and asking you to post a compilation of your sick banners for the hell of it.

Well I'm not one to say no to peer pressure, so here we go:

Spoiler: Banners of my oneshots

For my oneshots, I'm a big fan of rather minimalist banners. This is because they're rather easy to come up with and make, and they're very clean and nice to look at once done.

You can notice that these oneshots tend to have a similar color pattern: black, white, red, yellow. This is mostly because they fit the tone. Black is a clear choice for "dark" stories as it creates an atmosphere of uncertainty, discomfort and mystery. Black also ties into the protagonist, Red (ironic, I know), who has black hair and eyes like a proper edgelord. White (and the Times New Roman) bring an element of cleanness and elegance, also fitting Red given his pretentious way of speaking and mindset that he's above everyone else. In Prayer, it also fits the arm in a different way, as it's frozen and that of a corpse. In Vivarium, it shows the white cube the protagonist is trapped in, along with the scraggly black beast.

For the color red, it clearly references blood (as seen in Night One and Metanoia), but it's also important for yellow as it leads to it through orange. This gradient brings fire to mind, which is what it is in Prayer and The Shadow. In Prayer, the piece of the frozen arm is heated via boiling a bowl of water, and in The Shadow, the protagonist (not Red this time, but Red is present) sees upside-down flames. In Metanoia, the fire has gone out, leaving only a tiny glow behind. If you read into the elaborate candle metaphor, you know what it means.

Yellow had a different role in Vivarium's banner, where only a speck of it is present and without the red gradient. This is because the eyes of the beast indeed are yellow, and not going through red and orange from black is less natural, more striking and therefore fitting for the unnatural, nightmarish beast. Vivarium also had a change in font - it's closer to the hand written title of the cover art for Hunter, Haunted, which makes sense as Vivarium continues from it.

However, while I seem to have elaborate meanings behind a lot of these choices, I can also tell you a few elements are in just because I thought they looked neat. ;p

Anyway, speaking of Hunter, Haunted:

Spoiler: Banners of Hunter, Haunted

The first cover art of Hunter, Haunted simply featured the golden mask so important to the story, but in (to the best of my abilities) realistic style. It is surrounded by darkness and grasped by an unknown black hand. The second and current cover art for the story is somewhat of an expanded version of the first with a style change and a different tagline.

The reason I made a second one was because I'd started to dislike the first. I didn't like how the mask turned out and the tagline didn't feel that fitting. I'm not totally sure if the new tagline is that fitting either, but hey, it has the word "mask" in it and that's good enough.

Anyway, the current cover has Red in the woods, the mask on his face and his hand on the mask, a soulless eye peering through one socket. The mask has blood-rimmed edges, hinting at both specific events and overall at the gory nature of the story. In the background, a smaller, childlike figure can be seen staring at Red - this would naturally be Michi, as she's a pretty prevalent character.

Despite being a silhouette, Red has some detail to him. You can see some stylized muscles, the scabbard for his knife and something happening to his other arm. Read the story if you wanna find out, ya bozo.

Under Red, you can see blades of grass, and one would expect to see in the woods - this was mostly for compositional purposes as it helps frame the cover and bring attention to the middle (where it should be)... but they do also look a bit like needles, don't they?

Moving on from the covers to the banners: you've probably spotted some, if not all, in my signature. It's the purpose I created them for, as I saw a lot of users with cool sig banners advertising their story and I wanted to spice up my own sig anyway.

There are three banners. At first there was only one, and I had no intention of creating more, but I got bored of the first one after a while and didn't feel like it represented the story where it currently was, either. A while after making the second, I had the idea of making a final one as the story changed direction again. As a result, the story is now kind of divided in three in my mind based on these banners. I'd tell you why, but it'd be spoilery.

Now let's take a peek at the present:

Spoiler: Banners of Seiren (and Agápe)

Only a long while after I had completed Agápe (the story Seiren is a rewrite of) did I finish a cover/banner for it. I put a lot of effort into it, and I still think it's one of my best paintings I've ever done, which is a shame given how I just don't want to use it for Seiren. It's not that I don't like it, I'm just kind of an "out with the old, in with the new" person when it comes to art. This, and I wanted Seiren to have a simpler cover so that I could make a matching signature banner for it.

Both Agápe and Seiren have their titles written both with Roman letters as well as Greek, given the names come from old Greek. At this moment, I would like to thank my school physics for essentially teaching me the Greek alphabet without a single lesson on the language. I chose Agápe initially because of its meaning of "love between a man and a god", even if the connotation is very different from what the story does with the concept. With this rewrite, I wanted a new name to separate it from the old version anyway, so out went Agápe. Instead, thinking about the story, I saw that it does focus a lot more on the girl, Shirlee, than it does with Helix, and I wanted the title and art to reflect that. I'd previously referred to Shirlee as a "siren" in one synopsis of the story, so I went with that - or actually its transliteration of the Greek word. Partly because "Siren" just makes me think of the blinky cop lights. To go with the siren theme, I gave Shirlee kind of a feather-crest-shaped head fin (and "feathery" tentacles, but they don't show here). The star is because... well, she's a star.

Seiren finally changed the black-white-red-yellow palette of my oneshots and Hunter, Haunted. It fits as I consider Seiren a bit sillier, anyway. Seiren's colors are red, blue, pink and all shades of those, corresponding with the three characters of the love triangle. This time, Red is actually red. I found those three figures of the sig banner very fun to design - there's a lot you can say with just simple shapes and textures. Even without the colors, it'd be pretty clear who's supposed to be whom.

Oh gosh. That was a lot of rambling. This is why I didn't want to post my stuff right from the get-go, I would have talked everyone's ears off and scared them away from posting lol. I'm just really into art theory and symbolism and stuff. Makes me consider becoming a freelance graphic designer if my current programmer plan goes nowhere.

 

[diamondpearl876]

screams externally These are great! Thanks for sharing! I was kinda wondering what your Seiren banner symbolized, forgot to ask, and now I know. xD The original Agápe banner was always a favorite of mine, although I think now the new H,H one takes that prize.

Also, how would you (or anyone) suggest they come up with banner ideas for their work?

 

[Misfit Angel]

Also, how would you (or anyone) suggest they come up with banner ideas for their work?

For me, the process is usually:

1. The main theme that influences the rest. This is usually the story theme itself.
   
2. Main text, and choosing the font. The font should personify the story in some way, be it emotion, a specific theme (80s action movie, for example) or even geography/culture.
3. Will there be any secondary text, such as a tagline? Should it use the same font, or something different?
4. A logo of some sort. In my case, as shown by my banners below, it's usually characters or some sort of simple graphic.
5. A background that ties it all together, or really sells the setting of the story.
6. Any additional graphics, such as badges, ribbons or decorations. Trying to keep a consistent look when it comes to details is important (nothing 8-bit looking on a photo background, for example)
   
7. Any final edits that need to be made to make things pop, such as shadows and borders.

I make my own banners and I'm quite proud of a few of them. Here are the ones that I care to share:

Spoiler

Ah, the original Storm Island banner. I had to dig deep for this one, as it was no longer in my project folder. Caitlin (my original co-author) and I wanted this to be a standard badge quest story, and when I drafted up the banner for this one, we planned on Andrea and Larson sticking together throughout the entire story (complete with romantic mischief that eventually resulted in the two getting engaged in the final chapter). None of that happened in the end.

I don't remember the font used on this one, or the following two, but I do like it. I'll have to find it again some day. The background is fairly generic and either came from a Final Fantasy battle screen or just a google image search for "beach".

Storm Island's second season was introduced with this banner. It's remarkably different from the previous one, since Andrea had survived the sinking of a cruise ship and washed ashore in the jungle nation of Sakala. I don't remember where the background image came from, but I tried to focus on Buddhist architecture, as after the initial survival plot was resolved I intended to dive heavily into the spirituality and detail of the new region. Since there was no focus on gyms at this point, I dropped the badge line.

By the time I made this banner, I had established Andrea and Kimberly as inseparable best friends and highlighted this by the way they appeared with each other: Andrea telling a joke and Kimberly giggling like a schoolgirl. Their clothes were inspired by the 19th century wardrobe they were given after they finally found their way back to sanity civilization, since their old clothes had more or less been destroyed following the sinking of the ship and the week and a half spent in the jungle.

I did okay with the character graphics on this one, but they're very rough compared to my current level of skill.

At this point, I'd established my current style: wide and short, white border and golden text.

I never did make it to season 3 of Storm Island, but I did make a banner for it. At this point I intended to completely abandon the notion of a badge quest in favor of Andrea's scientific studies, so I didn't bother reintroducing the badges at the bottom. Since season 3 was going to return back to Storm Island itself, I reused the beach scene from the first one. Andrea's finalized design was shown here, as was Kimberly's stereotypical wealthy socialite design... not too proud of how she turned out, tbh.

This one introduced my current project, Land of the Roses. Nothing particularly special about this one, but with the background I wanted to capture the spirit of rural Northern England, with its rolling hills and open fields (and of course, the lack of sun). I also went for a bit of symbolism with the rose, but I don't quite like how it looks.

The font used here is "Ardagh".

On the subject of the rose, I found a different graphic for season 2's banner, one that's less flat and doesn't clash horrendously with the level of detail of the rest of the banner. Since this one was made relatively recently, I remember the backdrop being taken from a photo of the Oregon coastline (since the majority focus of the season is intended to be the southern coast of Lanark). I can't quite remember where the building came from, but I chopped it out of another photo and added it in as I planned on one of the main characters visiting a holy site related to her spirituality... but I dropped that idea already, so it's kinda just there.

For those who saw it during its brief stay on the forums, A Flower at Sea was about the passionate night together between two of my characters while aboard a cruise ship. With the text (font: "Milasian Circa") I wanted to capture the feel of sleazy neon that you see in the less reputable parts of Las Vegas, and I think I did a good job of it. Very warm, subtle hues.

Sad to say it, but this is the banner I'm actually the most proud of. It just goes together so well.

My newest spin off got this banner, which broke from my traditional style. It turned out well, but I'm not sure I like it as much anymore because it's so different. I tried to achieve an over-the-top Hollywood style appearance with this one, as the intent of Night with the Stars is that it's basically just patting celebrities on the back for just living their lives. The font used here is "Harson".

I'm not sure what I was trying to achieve with this banner, other than I remember needing something quick and not wanting to put a lot of effort in. Despite the rush job, it actually did turn out quite decent. Font used is "Upheaval". I did plan to revisit the story and even made a new banner for it, but it's not one I'm particularly proud of.

and obviously, the best banner, my magnum opus and the epitome of great banner design

 

[canisaries]

Also, how would you (or anyone) suggest they come up with banner ideas for their work?

Well, I have two main criteria for my banners: they have to look good and they have to represent the story. The first one is why I go with simplified stuff a lot as more detail is harder to pull off well. The second is usually easy if the story has certain objects or elements that are prevalent - I just take that and make it dramatic. For longer stories, I have the protagonist in focus, as he's the focus of the story, but still do keep things simple, as simple tends to be better than overly complicated.

For other folk, they should take into consideration the tone of the story and what about it is most prevalent. More lighthearted stories tend to get more straightforward covers, heavier have subtlety to hint at how they're more "thinksy" and not just a fun walk in the park. For aesthetic reasons, it's usually good to have a set color palette in either case - when a banner looks well thought out, the story will appear so to outsiders as well. If there are multicolored characters, colored lighting/shading can be used to tie them together. This is actually what I did when I made the banner for Lucarioknight's Unequivocant:

Spoiler

There may be a lot of detail, but the orange lighting wraps it all up into one package. It also has a nice contrast to the blue title and Arthus's eye.

However, if one's still struggling to come up with a banner idea, it's alright to just have a banner with the title in nicely rendered text. You still have color and fonts to work with, and as proven there's a lot you can do with those.

 

[kintsugi]

I don't really have a formal background in graphic design, but thank you so much @canisaries for that detailed walkthrough of the process behind your banners. It's frankly quite awe-inspiring to see (in writing; it's usually pretty evident just looking at them) how much work goes in there. And it was a lovely read.

I dabble in banners! Not awesome at it and still have a long way to go. sorry ace

This is the only one that I liked enough to publish, for spectra:

Spoiler

I also went for minimalism! Equal parts because it's my a e s t h e t i c and, like canis said, also because it's a lot easier to cover up mistakes than if I did actual drawings. I kept a really limited palette (two greys, and a highlight/chapter color) that dodges between under and over-saturated because I'm already bad enough at color selection as it is to highlight the color motif I was running throughout the fic. Everyone's divided up by thick, dark lines but they're all bounded together by something bigger; lotsa negative space for everyone except Maia; lots of focus on eyes, specifically where/who they're looking to. Those were mostly my thoughts when designing it.

Looking at banners: honestly, really slow standards. If you have a banner I'm probably gonna give it a click. I've tried to parse out anything more specific than that, but it appears that my brain is very much attracted to pictures and titles on pictures.