Possible New forum banner?

Whoops

Been there
Thread starter
I had some free time and decided to make a forum banner based which pays homage to Guth's orginal work. The CB1100 text is a replication of the side cover logo text and I intend to add the 2017 EX and RS if folks are interested in this banner. None of the content in this banner has been copied from the original forum. All the text and images originated from stock Honda press photographs and my work in Photoshop. If everyone like this, I will work on adding two more bikes to the image, the 2017 EX and RS. The version used on the site would be about half this size in order to increase load times and reduce the height of the banner.

Feedback?

1st banner: Recreation of the old forum banner. This one is more complex, there for it loads more slowly since there is a lot going on.
[attachment=47]

2nd banner: Simple, lots of white. Loads quickly.
[attachment=48]
 

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I don't mind the one rdprdp01 pulled together, but I like what you've done too, Whoops. I quite like the idea of something a little smaller.
 
Nice work, Whoops. I believe all of us what a slightly smaller header graphic. The one I pulled together I did so quickly at 2:00 AM one morning. It is definitely an interim placeholder.  :) 

Let me work through a few things, save a few dollars, and then kick off the phase 2 design and functionality enhancement for the baseline we have now. I will setup a poll for all replacement candidate graphics and defer to the Members. At this moment, I would vote for your graphic! I have received a couple of others which I will share next month. Great work. David
 
Thread starter
rdprdp01 said:
Nice work, Whoops. I believe all of us what a slightly smaller header graphic. The one I pulled together I did so quickly at 2:00 AM one morning. It is definitely an interim placeholder.  :) 

Let me work through a few things, save a few dollars, and then kick off the phase 2 design and functionality enhancement for the baseline we have now. I will setup a poll for all replacement candidate graphics and defer to the Members. At this moment, I would vote for your graphic! I have received a couple of others which I will share next month. Great work. David

Sounds good. If you want the Photoshop resources I created, let me know. I can send you all the PSD files.
 
Whoops said:
rdprdp01 said:
Nice work, Whoops. I believe all of us what a slightly smaller header graphic. The one I pulled together I did so quickly at 2:00 AM one morning. It is definitely an interim placeholder.  :) 

Let me work through a few things, save a few dollars, and then kick off the phase 2 design and functionality enhancement for the baseline we have now. I will setup a poll for all replacement candidate graphics and defer to the Members. At this moment, I would vote for your graphic! I have received a couple of others which I will share next month. Great work. David

Sounds good. If you want the Photoshop resources I created, let me know. I can send you all the PSD files.

Please send it to me or forward a download link. I will archive it along with the source code for the site. I will also not use it for any purpose other than what you designate. It is your property, not mine. :)  Thanks, again. David
 
Thread starter
rdprdp01 said:
Whoops said:
rdprdp01 said:
Nice work, Whoops. I believe all of us what a slightly smaller header graphic. The one I pulled together I did so quickly at 2:00 AM one morning. It is definitely an interim placeholder.  :) 

Let me work through a few things, save a few dollars, and then kick off the phase 2 design and functionality enhancement for the baseline we have now. I will setup a poll for all replacement candidate graphics and defer to the Members. At this moment, I would vote for your graphic! I have received a couple of others which I will share next month. Great work. David

Sounds good. If you want the Photoshop resources I created, let me know. I can send you all the PSD files.

Please send it to me or forward a download link. I will archive it along with the source code for the site. I will also not use it for any purpose other than what you designate. It is your property, not mine. :)  Thanks, again. David

Sure thing. Give me a few days to add the other two bikes and I will message you.
 
Whoops said:
rdprdp01 said:
Whoops said:
rdprdp01 said:
Nice work, Whoops. I believe all of us what a slightly smaller header graphic. The one I pulled together I did so quickly at 2:00 AM one morning. It is definitely an interim placeholder.  :) 

Let me work through a few things, save a few dollars, and then kick off the phase 2 design and functionality enhancement for the baseline we have now. I will setup a poll for all replacement candidate graphics and defer to the Members. At this moment, I would vote for your graphic! I have received a couple of others which I will share next month. Great work. David

Sounds good. If you want the Photoshop resources I created, let me know. I can send you all the PSD files.

Please send it to me or forward a download link. I will archive it along with the source code for the site. I will also not use it for any purpose other than what you designate. It is your property, not mine. :)  Thanks, again. David

Sure thing. Give me a few days to add the other two bikes and I will message you.

If you want to add a little color you are more than welcome to use my 2013. I'm not sure how to extract it from the background though.

NMx6yrU.jpg
 
Thread starter
Randy B said:
Whoops said:
rdprdp01 said:
Whoops said:
rdprdp01 said:
Nice work, Whoops. I believe all of us what a slightly smaller header graphic. The one I pulled together I did so quickly at 2:00 AM one morning. It is definitely an interim placeholder.  :) 

Let me work through a few things, save a few dollars, and then kick off the phase 2 design and functionality enhancement for the baseline we have now. I will setup a poll for all replacement candidate graphics and defer to the Members. At this moment, I would vote for your graphic! I have received a couple of others which I will share next month. Great work. David

Sounds good. If you want the Photoshop resources I created, let me know. I can send you all the PSD files.

Please send it to me or forward a download link. I will archive it along with the source code for the site. I will also not use it for any purpose other than what you designate. It is your property, not mine. :)  Thanks, again. David

Sure thing. Give me a few days to add the other two bikes and I will message you.

If you want to add a little color you are more than welcome to use my 2013. I'm not sure how to extract it from the background though.

NMx6yrU.jpg

Thanks for the offer Randy B! There are a few reasons I'm working off Honda Press Kit stock images however instead of users bikes. The Honda images are very brightly and evenly lit, are high-resolution, royalty free and have white backgrounds that are easy to convert to transparency. It is also nice that the images have brand new stock bikes in them. However, the 2017 EX and RS photo's have a gradient background that is turning out to be very difficult to remove.
 
[attachment=40 said:
[attachment=41]Randy B pid='315' dateline='1745177387']
Whoops said:
rdprdp01 said:
Whoops said:
rdprdp01 said:
Nice work, Whoops. I believe all of us what a slightly smaller header graphic. The one I pulled together I did so quickly at 2:00 AM one morning. It is definitely an interim placeholder.  :) 

Let me work through a few things, save a few dollars, and then kick off the phase 2 design and functionality enhancement for the baseline we have now. I will setup a poll for all replacement candidate graphics and defer to the Members. At this moment, I would vote for your graphic! I have received a couple of others which I will share next month. Great work. David

Sounds good. If you want the Photoshop resources I created, let me know. I can send you all the PSD files.

Please send it to me or forward a download link. I will archive it along with the source code for the site. I will also not use it for any purpose other than what you designate. It is your property, not mine. :)  Thanks, again. David

Sure thing. Give me a few days to add the other two bikes and I will message you.

If you want to add a little color you are more than welcome to use my 2013. I'm not sure how to extract it from the background though.

NMx6yrU.jpg

Whoops,

A few items for your consideration. We all look forward to the next iteration:

Royalty Free: Definitely much appreciated by me. When The Ferret encouraged me to swap out the banner graphic, I went down the royalty free road. However, if you discover the perfect picture that will satisfy your inner Picasso, let me know and I will see what I can do to pay the license fee. Let's get it right. You decide right.

Compatibility: This has been my greatest challenge so far as we sort through the various phones, tablets, and computers Members employ while viewing this site. We also face graphic card limitations for each of those device types. 

I was able to get the current banner page to work, but I am not satisfied with the speed even though it has rendered nicely on the test devices used by most people accessing the Forum. It is not painfully slow, but it is slightly below what most people expect. What it did achieve is a consistent rendering, but it is not optimized. I am hoping you have time to work through those nuiances. If you do not, I will make the time. I am a good to great photoshop user and can work at your direction. Standing offer. 

Speed: I do believe the previous site met the speed performance threshold we all want, but my placeholder remains a little slow because I did not have the time to optimize it. I have attached a Photoshop file documenting the banner image settings for the banner logo from the prior site along with the base image. I thought sending you both could save you some time. 

Background Color: All things considered, I think white is the safest background color choose for the base image. It is easier to work with on multiple devices and creates less stress for the Responsive Theme we have loaded up on the new site. Once again, use what you think is best, and I will load it up.

Graduations: Similar to a background colors, graduations can cause graphic stress. If you can meet your standard with solids, that is better for the processing of the site. However, if your perfect design has graduations, go for it, brother!

Thanks again for the help. David
 

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Base image from cb1100forum.com[attachment=42]
 

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In my humble opinion I think simplicity is best. rdprdp01's banner design looks good to me. Having several bikes looks too cluttered.
 
I am also a fan of the simple banner.
 
Either banner is good. Just happy that we have a forum thanks to the hard work that David and others are doing.
 
I will create another "placeholder" banner scaled down and faster to load later today. I hope to have it up and running tomorrow. Will see how well its received as another interim step. My main focus is data migration and how to capture the great work and contribution everyone has made over the years. New functionality for the Forum (a like button, chat feature, etc. is also on the design board).

Like all things with this Forum, everything is up for review. Will check out all banner options when we reach that eval phase and make the right choice for everyone.

It is our Forum, not my Forum. Please never loose site of that. Have a great week. David
 
I did a little optimization work on the banner page picture today. It should load faster now than before. Have a great week, everyone. David
 
For the sake of the RLET police, would it be possible to get RLETs on the banner bike?
 
Yes, I support this idea, but powerful RLETS sponsors like MILord and Cormanus need to make their voices heard as well  ;)
I am the only member that has invisable RLETS on my DLX... already aproved and certified by MiLord!
 
I am not a graphic designer. I have to use a stock image with a little photoshop magic to not embarrass myself. I also have to to keep the same aspect ratio or I must go in and modify some CSS files and frames so that the auto response feature, which enables our Forum to readjust based on device, to work. I am more than willing to do so or farm it out to a pro for a fee, but would like to leave the banner as is for now until I get the data migration monkey off my back. If there is a Honda or other royalty free image anyone can recommend for a new rendering, I would be grateful. If we do move forward with a new banner image, I would like it to be left in place for a few years. Please consider the possibilities and submit candidates. I will create a poll and ask for the Members to vote on what we want as the key image for the Forum. Thanks, everyone.
 
It appears to me that my original assumption (use the prior artwork from cb100forum.com) is not a good one. So let’s make this 2nd generation Forum what it needs to be. :)
 
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