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I Met A Man Who Wasn't There (sharizard) wrote in rp_tutorials,
@ 2013-05-23 16:46:00

Entry tags:

question: graphics

Awards?
Howdy all!

So I'm part of a mod team of a game that's turning 1 in a couple of months, and we're discussing doing community wide awards.

I've been in games where this has been done before, awards are usually very pretty and cool and it makes for a good way to get the players to recognize one another and for us to recognize them as well. We're really into the idea.

But I'm not really sure about how I would make the awards so that they're nice. I want them to be nice and clean and pretty but nothing too cheesy or overdone. I've been playing with graphics for years but sometimes I find that that I try to do anything involving colors/pics/text, it just sort of looks amateurish and dull, so I need to learn some new tricks.

Any tips? Particularly with laying text over images, that would be immensely helpful.

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	mary_greenman 2013-05-24 03:44 am UTC (link)
	What sort of design are you looking for? I could make something like this for you, if you wanted. (Reply to this)

crazyquilt
2013-05-28 05:09 pm UTC (link)

Here's a few general tips, and I'm not sure how helpful they'd be:

stock images cropped creatively make great bases. WeHeartIt and DeviantArt are my two favorite places.

fonts are your friend. dafont.com is a nice repository of free and easy-to-use fonts. A pretty font makes stock images more attractive.

Lastly, once you've decided on the font, use your layer transparency and/or look. Hue, Saturation, Hard/Soft light, Overlay, and Burn are the ones I've found work best. You can duplicate the text layer, and use it to create a shadow, or a border.

(Reply to this)

tessisamess
2013-05-29 12:54 am UTC (link)

KISS is a really good thing to keep in mind for situations like this (Keep it simple</b>, stupid.) Subtlety in your patterns (if you're using them), readable fonts, and colors that don't clash; images that lend but don't overbear (again, if you're using them.)

Places like Subtle Patterns are good for if you want to keep the award design simple and clean. This guide of mine is more for making layouts, but some of it may help.

As ~crazyquilt mentioned, dA does have some good stock, but make sure it's categorized as stock, because some artists may not be too happy about their non-stock art being used.

As for layering text over images, outlining the text or using a shadow effect is always a good, simple way to go if you need your text to pop more.

Or, you could always go the route of making each award banner character-specific, and use the PB's image for the banner. It's more effort, but it's a lot more personalized. Not for a game, but here are some banners a friend and I did last year for a fic contest on a comm I run.

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