Christmas Logo

Taluntain

Keeper of the Watch
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As you've probably noticed, we (read @Arhu ) swapped out the old logo image for a more season-appropriate one across the site and the forums. We've got a couple more that'll be used around Christmas and New Year.

However! None of them feature any actual Christmas lights. And I'm a sucker for nice Christmas lights. The logos aren't responsive either, so ideally we'd have responsive versions of all 3 images so that they would look good across all devices and forum layouts.

I like the current snowman & tower one as the basic backdrop, but I'd like to see some multi-coloured Christmas lights added to it. E.g. running down the tower and over the title, maybe on strings across a few poles on the hills as well. I don't think that we have the original high-res versions of these logo images anywhere, so you'd have to either work with the existing image (badly compressed already, so any modification would need to be saved in a format that wouldn't compress the image again) or start anew from scratch.

If anyone wants to have a stab at it anew, for reference, we'll keep the same logo area layout height, but the image should be responsive so that it will resize across the fluid forum layout and the fluid site layout when we eventually implement it. I'd possibly go with a bit more fantasy-ish font than the plain one in the old images as well.

Here are the images we found digging around among the site files (@Arhu and others might have more that would be useful to add):

logo.png

header-snowman-tower.jpg

header-snowman-xmas.jpg

header-snowman-ny.jpg
 
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I fear my photoshop skills would produce a primitive effort, which would be immediately voted off the island.
 
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I like them.
 
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I agree with @Taluntain that somewhat more festive lights would add some needed atmosphere. But sadly I would only be able to decrease the artistic value of the already existing images with my "skills".
 
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I'm not sure what this forum's image requirements are for the fluid layout, but for fixed, it appears to be 950x100 px. It's not really possible to make an image responsive in a fluid container unless you use multiple image sources at several breakpoints, or if it supports overlaying the fixed elements like the logo and other illustrations, separately.

I took a fun stab at something completely new, but along the same train of thought with snowy mountains and lights, and a medieval-looking font.

Let me know what you think! :)

rpgwatch_winter_2022_01.png
 
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Never liked the winter logo here, that ugly blue gives coldness, sadness and loneliness vibes, at least for me; a nice one would be trees everywhere full of lights or at least something with green dominant
the first one from docmars is actually nice
 
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I agree the first banner is better and fits the site with the font and lights.
 
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I like the first one docmars. Can you try it with the black tower just to see if it would still look festive and keep the original logo?
 
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I'm not sure what this forum's image requirements are for the fluid layout, but for fixed, it appears to be 950x100 px. It's not really possible to make an image responsive in a fluid container unless you use multiple image sources at several breakpoints, or if it supports overlaying the fixed elements like the logo and other illustrations, separately.

I took a fun stab at something completely new, but along the same train of thought with snowy mountains and lights, and a medieval-looking font.

Let me know what you think! :)

View attachment 4406
I like this one better than the second one as well, I'm just not very keen on that font as it's pretty narrow and the "c" kinda reads like an "e" with the light behind it. Can you send me the original image to admin /at/ rpgwatch . com so I can play with my font selection a bit? Also, is the colour of the lights changeable by any chance?

As for the image dimensions, if it can't be responsive it should probably be bigger than the current one. @Arhu can you say what the dimensions/format should be? Height is fine, so it's just the matter of width.
 
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Maybe I can find the original RPGWatch font somewhere.
 
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I found the RPGWatch font - it is called Optima LT Medium:
 

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  • font.zip
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I like this one better than the second one as well, I'm just not very keen on that font as it's pretty narrow and the "c" kinda reads like an "e" with the light behind it. Can you send me the original image to admin /at/ rpgwatch . com so I can play with my font selection a bit? Also, is the colour of the lights changeable by any chance?

As for the image dimensions, if it can't be responsive it should probably be bigger than the current one. @Arhu can you say what the dimensions/format should be? Height is fine, so it's just the matter of width.
Fonts
I used Pirata One for this variation, but you can find more Medieval / Fantasy-looking fonts at this link. I believe they're all freely available on Google Fonts, so lots to play with.

Design file
I used Figma to put variations together, I'll send you a link where you can make edits on the web. You may need a Figma account (free) to edit however. If you haven't used it before, it's very similar to Adobe Illustrator or Sketch, but intended for UI design.

Light colors
You can definitely change the colors if you crack open the lights image in Photoshop or another editing tool, and apply Hue shifts to individual selections, or you could use a brush and paint over them, then apply an Overlay or similar Blending Mode on that layer. Definitely a few ways.

In the Figma file, the lights are set on a black background so the Lighten blend mode can be used on it. This way it blends well with the background — basically any black or darker colors are made transparent / semi-transparent when this happens.

Dimensions
Keep in mind, if we make a longer image, it will stretch or not fill the entire 100px height in that case, so you'll either be left with an ugly stretching image, or something that's shrunk down in height to fit the width. Remember that images are static sizes. Ideally, if the forum software allows, you could do a few things:
  • Center an image and apply a similar background color behind it
  • Make a background image fill the entire block, and overlay a second image for the logo so it sits within the site's frame.
  • Provide multiple widths for the image and have the forum choose which one, based on the site's theme selected (e.g. fluid vs. fixed)
Again, I'm not familiar with this forum software. I'm a skilled web designer + developer of 17 years — so I'm taking educated guesses here.
 
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I like the first one docmars. Can you try it with the black tower just to see if it would still look festive and keep the original logo?
Thanks! Unfortunately using black for the tower/logo causes it to get washed out on a background like this. White helps ensures there's contrast, whereas other colors would make it look too silly.

Here's what I mean:
1670462977583.png
 
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Maybe a litte outer-glow-effect on the tower and RPGWatch lettering could work with black. Or try putting white snow on it.
 
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