Photoshop Contest! Design a TPR Twitter Background

[Chroniq]

Just a thought.. Don't get caught up in the placement of rollercoasters, etc. Try to look at the design from an overall standpoint. Try to imagine the background as the general public might.. This is kind of a style over substance thing. The background should convey what tpr is about, but also be cool/interesting/slick enough to get the casual fan to follow the site.

 

 

 

Chris "Is only giving my opinion and not tprs" Connolly

[atem122]

Angry_Gumball, I'm gonna agree with Chroniq and say that it's a good proof of concept. As a TPR user, I'd prefer if the rides in the background weren't really definable (if you use rides), because then it takes away from the whole general theme park aspect. Although in this case, Robb and Wes's opinions trump all, so don't listen to me if they say otherwise.

[Wes]

I'm not entering in the contest, but essentially here's my pitch: just very stripped down: The TPR logo and a nice background image. Gumball said, and this was my idea too, that a good image can be easily added to this template and we can possibly switch out new photos and stuff.

[Chroniq]

Wes.... I was worried you might do this.. Can we get a real entry from you, to at least set a benchmark?

 

 

 

Edited to say- Not that your first one wasn't awesome.. I suspect you spent less than an hour on it.

[Wes]

I'm only on my laptop for a few days, and honestly it's hard for me to do nitty gritty design work without a bigger screen or a proper mouse. And to be honest, I'd rather see if someone else can come up with something very creative that works well before I try to do anything official.

[Angry_Gumball]

A test with a different photo just to see how 'photo swapping' would look. I also added the whole Theme Park Review to the left (different orientation than Wes's) and ditched the Dipper.

[Chroniq]

Now I think we are getting somewhere. Gum ball- I like this, but Wes's sihloeutte included people. People are the essence of tpr...

[Angry_Gumball]

I know Robb stated staying away from silhouettes so here's another idea. I agree, it should probably feature the coaster in operation with people riding it (unless it's a Deja Vu). While I didn't use the halftone pattern (Was looking odd), I did borrow some elements from the Club TPR signature.

 

Sorry if I'm flooding this thread with images, it's that as I design one, I'm coming up with alternate ideas to share almost immediately after.

Edited September 27, 2010 by Angry_Gumball

[traincrossin]

^Those are looking great Gumball! My only concern is making sure that they're compatible with multiple screen sizes. I'll try and submit my design soon. It probably won't be nearly as good as everyone else's, but it was something that I still wanted to try for my first time so constructive criticism would be nice when I finish it.

[Angry_Gumball]

^That's where I think I'm going to run into a problem. I don't know what dimensions the new Twitter uses, if it's the same as the old or not. It will be easy for me to recreate this at a full resolution once I know what it is. All of this is overlaid ontop of Wes's screenshot he posted a few pages back (note the "wesisrad" on the top right). Because I don't have the new layout with my Twitter account, I had to somewhat recreate the white panes, hence them being entirely blank.

[Wes]

The white box scales to a maximum width of 1400 pixels, after that it stays fixed and the background expands and the white box recenters...so not sure if your design would work because the center justification would be off on larger screens.

[traincrossin]

This is just me randomly speaking out loud now. I'm not sure how you can make the picture part of your design universal for everyone, but if you made the background of your design the same color as the background on Twitter (which you can change), you can make sure it doesn't cut off.

[Chroniq]

Is there a "new twitter" design guide? Isn't the design mantra to create for the lowest resolution supported and allow upscaling from there? Also is there a way to fix what you want behind the translucent area using a table or css formatting?

[traincrossin]

^If there is I haven't found one, it's still brand new at this point.

 

Although the layout of Twitter has changed a bit, screen resolution sizes haven't changed. Most of the important info you would have wanted on the left anyways because there's around 200 pixels of space that is guaranteed to be there regardless of screen size (might be a little smaller on the new Twitter, that's why I said around) and then the rest of the space is just filler in case someone has a really big screen. As Gumball has shown us, the transparent sidebar is something that you can use to your, but it doesn't seem like that is set in place on all screen sizes.

 

Here's a good template for designing a Twitter background from www.fuelyourcreativity.com/free-psd-twitter-background-template/

 

I'm still following this template posted earlier. I'm just sharing how i'm doing things to try and help others out, i'm sure other people have better ideas than me though. The main part of my design will be 1024x768 (small screen size, it's the height limit I really care about) but the entire thing will be 2560x1600 (big screen size). I'm trying to get the edges to be the same color as a background color on Twitter in case someone has a bigger screen size than the picture, this way it won't look cut off. So basically all of my important info will be 200x768 on the left and the rest filler.

[Chroniq]

Traincrossin.. This is all great information regarding the guaranteed pixel space on the left. I'll see what I can dig up about style guides for the "new/improved/sexier twitter".

 

 

 

Chris "no one designs for 800x600 anymore? (posted from his 3840x1080 DM setup)" Connolly

[matteocrepaldi]

Here's a new one. I just started; let me know what you think.

[robbalvey]

Hey everyone - With all the new changes coming up to Twitter I think we are going to table this contest for the time being until the new Twitter format gets rolled out officially.

 

Thank you to everyone who submitted images - hopefully when we start this back up, you can pick up where we left off!

 

--Robb

[MG]

Ok Robb, I think that is a sensible course of action. Hopefully you have more luck next time around.

[Chroniq]

@Robb. ---now what thread should i post my random, nonsensical judgements too???

 

 

 

 

 

Chris "is sure he is asking for trouble" Connolly

[Angry_Gumball]

I was kind of hoing this decision would be made. To me it felt like were were jumping in blindly not really knowing how it will turn out. Once it's released officially and someones figured out the dimensions is probably best. Until then this is our brainstorming phase.

[Visioneer]

I decided to play with this one anyway, so just .jpg and no .zip A little research helped, but this is a tough challenge!

 

This is a “one size fits almost all” background. It’s a quickie design (so I enlarged / stretched photos, blurs, etc.). Maybe it’ll spark some more ideas.

 

I think TPR created the monster of all Photoshop contest here. The various sizes are a tough fit.

Smallest 1024x768

Largest 1600x1200

The basic background

[Chroniq]

This is really, really good. Just saying.