Banner image

It's about time to refresh the banner image on our front page.

First of all, please give your thoughts on the current look, which is a mash of character portraits with the group name (in what looks sort of like the Papyrus font, but I'm not sure it is).

The current design has some drawbacks to my mind, because of the question of what to do when members become inactive. It's a bit unpleasant having to take portraits off there, and risks squabbles further down the line if the member in question notices. Besides, we'd end up with three or four mugshots at the moment.

I kind of like the mixture of art styles, but perhaps others wouldn't, and a uniform look would probably give a better message.

So, thoughts on this design and possible other looks? I'm open to more or less anything tasteful. If I get my way we may eventually have a choice of page styles, so something not too tied-in with one particular colour scheme would be a bonus.

(If it does come to that we could very easily have a separate banner image for each style, but that introduces more complications...)

Also, if we want to stay with the mugshots, everyone can vote on which of other people's characters to include. Except that I'm using my presidential veto in my own case, because otherwise everyone will go for Weft, and he's not photogenic.

I don't like the collection-of-mugshots principle. Members becoming inactive or dropping out, someone moving on and using the character in the banner more rarely and others more - or NOT doing that despite wanting to because of the banner -, having difficulty deciding whom to put there...

But I don't have any stunning ideas for a different one. Apart from the tired scroll or quill pen... which also would seem to lock things further in the "ye olde" box.

How about a maze motive?

Maybe a logo designed around the name.

The name, hmm? *chinstroke*

A "profusion" to me means a crazy, fecund abundance - of ideas, enthusiasm, fun, plotbunnies, whatever. Separating the bits out, there's Pro because some of us wanted to keep the first element of the old name, Proelium which sorta-but-not-really means 'battle', and then fusion because it's meant to be a whole melting pot of ideas, universes, even genres...

Parts of me are now convinced that an amoebae motif would be "elegant".

Please also give me your thoughts, suggestions and votes for a colour scheme.

Post content will remain black text on a white background. Other than that, and that I don't enjoy loud pinks or yellows, I'm open to ideas.

If it's made a vector logo, the colours could be changed according to the possible future choices of page styles. I'd offer to whip something up myself, but y'all know I'm not reliable.

As for colours in general - I'm such a blue-with-a-hint-of-orange person that I'm pretty biased on that. x_o

I mean colour scheme for the boards in general as well as the logo/s.

My experience with vector design is pretty much nil, but I guess I could give it a go if I have software that can (I'm not sure). Left to my own devices I'd probably end up using some generic freeware photo, because of... stuff.

But if anyone can come up with a concept for a design I'll have a go at it, and if anyone wants to have a go themselves you're welcome to.

(Also, Dev, I'm being shockingly badly organised, but I need to get in touch about sending you a copy of this book and reward for the awesome Laima-pic.)

Oh, right. Well, for the boards I'd like cool grays and blue-grays... ^^; Something that doesn't irritate the eye in the long run.

Logo-design is actually one of the things I've studied, so in theory I should be able to utilize the programs at school to make some suggestions. Keeping in mind, again, my habitual laziness.

Getting a copy of the book would be lovely. I could email my address to you.

Anyone else have a preferred colour scheme? I'm resisting the urge to jump right in with the paint roller now someone else has independently suggested my favourite colours. :D

Ree and I have hashed out a few thoughts about the logo, though everyone else's ideas are fondly sought too.

Style

• Not oldey-worldey - none of the hackneyed 'wood or parchment texture and ancient Celtic font'
• Shouldn't be completely sci-fi/hi-tech either, though I'd like modern elements
• The current jumble of mugshots in different styles is out, though a single coherent scene of people is a possibility
• Right now I can't think of one single image to sum us up; the squirrel meme is falling out of use

Personally the reason I write fantasy can be summed up as "magic, monsters and reasonably realistic physics models", so I'd be more inclined in those directions rather than to the generic 'elf maiden with sword/unicorn/staff' you see in zillions of places. We're trying to be distinct from those.

Text
The name of the group is Profusion (not ProFusion; I lost the font I used on the current pic so couldn't change the capitalisation), and I don't really have a slogan, so one simple word is fine.

As far as fonts go:

• extremely readable (so we're looking at something pretty plain)
• not all-caps (though small-caps is a possibility - as long as the capital P is bigger than the rest)
• elegant
• a bit quirky
• and Ree says: for the love of all that's holy not Hobbit.

One of my current favourites is Maiandra GD: something similar to that but free would be awesome. Or since it seems to have been bundled with one of my applications, maybe it's ok to use anyway? *somewhat clueless with font legal stuff*


And certainly, please do email me your address, and let me know if there's anything else I can send you. (Kitty plushies? Silly TS Eliot poems?)

For some reason I have this tentative image in my head of a camp fire surrounded by people of different shapes, with a starry sky to complement it.

As to copyright issues. In Finland, I'm told in school, if the designer doesn't have the specific font the client wants, they can have the client send it over to the designer who then has better delete it after the job. This is at least for printing purposes. Should be the same for the web.

...I looked at the price of that font. Egads.

Email sent to webmutt. Anything else, you say...? Um. A pretty map of the London underground, maybe? :D My sister would love that.

I like greys, but neutral ones better than blue, cool ones.

Campfire is also rather "oldey-worldey", and in general I'm not very fond of the idea of having a scene/picture as a logo. 's why I suggested a labyrinth motive, it's abstract and not bound to a time.

Placeholder up, because I really wasn't happy with the copyvio.

I'm still no closer to working out an answer to "what says fantasy-and-other-speculative-fiction-genres writing without including sparkly maiden in big dress, man with sword or starfield?"... will try to keep thinking.

I was flirting with Myriad Pro until I realised it's "the iPod font". Ah well.