Skin/Theme...
 

It's been busy here for us but Mike did manage to create this for maybe the new upper left corner Logo instead of the V- Bulletin.

http://www.smithbassforums.com/images/misc/ksb-logo.gif

You like? It's not done yet but he did this 100% on his own one night.

Still a little sketchy, I know, hopefully I can find some time to take some better pictures, ones where I don't have to worry much about cropping out a background, and also gotta brush up my skills on making some nicer looking curves :p

want me to take a crack at making one? I'm pretty good with the GIMP.

Here are 2 I just whipped up in about 15 minutes before going to bed.

Note that the background wood can be changed. I would rather have a nice blank plank of ebony for it. Also, thinking about terminating each side with a Smith brass nut, or I can taper it into the page's background. Whatever ya like.

I took the lettering from Mike's logo, and from pictures I had, the Smith insignia off my bass, and the quilt from my bass.


1st is a simple bump map:
http://www.delusionalmind.com/images/kslogo_quilt.png

2nd is the same bump mapped quilt over a morado background I pulled from Ken's site:
http://www.delusionalmind.com/images/kslogo_morado.png

Let me know if you have any suggestions, or a nice picture of a blank ebony plank. If you want to use one I'll assign any copyrights to Ken. I really can't do anything else with them anyway as Ken owns the copyright on the morado image and trademark on the S inlay ;)

ah...
 

http://www.kensmithbasses.com/Double...n_Storioni.jpghttp://www.kensmithbasses.com/Double...n_Storioni.jpghttp://www.kensmithbasses.com/Double...n_Storioni.jpghttp://www.kensmithbasses.com/Double...n_Storioni.jpghttp://www.kensmithbasses.com/Double...n_Storioni.jpg

Ah, let's not forget about my favorite personal Bass, ok?..;)

Logo..
 

This is the Smith Logo;

http://www.kensmithbasses.com/tinySmithLogo.gif

Your image is just the Pearl inlay but close..;)

Is someone being just a little pedantic here?


Hey, nice work Bob and thanks.
Well, someone needed to say it!

I was going for the inlay since the background is wood. I thought it would be an interesting idea. I can take the logo you provided and use it to bump map the quilt or background wood. If you would like to get the DB into it a good straight on picture of the unstrung fingerboard and headstock, and another with it strung would be nice. I was trying to focus more on the electric since I'm assuming that's the larger part of your business.

Another interesting idea would be to use a picture of a block of the pearl inlay material to map the writing. It would provide much better contrast. Like I said I made those in about 15 minutes(between rocking my 1yo daughter to sleep and crawling into bed). I'll add some more sparkle when I get more time to work on them.

Is there a link to this forum from the sale/factory website? I had a quick look this morning and couldn't find anything.


BTW guys, you can make the forum logo as long or as short you like so long as the background of the logo is the same as the background of the banner. The background of the banner should take up any slack width between the end of the banner and the edge of the browser window.

For instance if you had a background that was black, you could use a logo with this kind of layout:

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y22.../Smithlogo.jpg

Real simple and the photography says warm, organic, smooth and sexy.

the main website you mean?
 

http://www.kensmithbasses.com/

Right under the Flag at the top of the home page. One day, we will hae links on other pages as well. Most people come over here from that link. Or, are you referring to something else?

Not at all. I just need my eyesight tested. :)

Nice logo Steve! Just clean up the edges a little more and that would be great! My plan was to spend some more time on them and either terminate each end with a brass nut, or to simply fade the ends to transparency so it will blend in with whatever they change the background to in the future.

Ken, would it be possible to get a good resolution picture of a plank of ebony, or an unlined ebony finderboard with the camera angle perpendicular to the plane of the board?

good resolution pic?
 

Not sure on the Pic. Why don't you guys make up your own Logo and put it in your signature like I did mine. Don't forget that the Double Bass needs to be in there to for my taste. After awhile if we pick a winner there may be a prize for creating the Logo. With the way you guys post, I like the variety of different ideas in the signature. So it's not just a contest but a private club to logo it as you see it fits your personal needs.

Exactly.....
 

Ken, I was going to stay out of this one, however, something along the line of what Steve has provided here (utilizing photography) was what I was going to suggest. Instead of trying to "photo-shop" your way towards a finished forum banner, why not have Mike piece together exactly what you want, take a photo shot of it, adjust size, resolution, etc., and use that? :confused:

I'll work on a more detailed one this weekend. I have an idea on how to incorporate both the electric and DB into the banner.

Mike, what is the limit on vertical resolution for the banner? I've been using 81 pixels as that is what your banner is. the vbulletin banner is 85 though.

Cheers! Yours took 15 minutes, mine took 30 ;) The photography says warm, organic, smooth and sexy - just like the basses.

BTW: Ken, the img tags are disabled in signatures and there's no upload function so no-one can post these logos there.

I actually like yours more than mine.. You've inspired me to make a new one this weekend :D

Sir, you flatter me indeed! Good luck for this weekend! :)

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y22...nalposteri.jpg

As a complete contrast, here's one I did last Saturday for Basstalk. Not sure how long Basstalk is going to be around but I got a sense of satisfaction out of putting something together. The players are Robert Trujillo and Billy Sheehan because they've got the most dramatic poses but I've replaced their heads with speakers to avoid any issues over using their likenesses. The speaker on Billy Sheehans head is my very own Yammy HS50 because I couldn't find one at the right angle on the internet. The theme was thunder and lightning and power (again for drama and to express the feelings associated with loud bass) and for laughs I stuck a pair of singing bass in the corner. Would have liked them to be singing scales (fish scales - geddit?) but its Bach instead, I think.

Then it got duo toned (so we can match it to a web safe colour scheme) and I reintroduced some coarseness to make the differences in resolution between the photographic images less obvious through using a posterisation filter.

nice.. in keeping with the theme of lightning and power, here is a promo pic I made for my brother to appear on the band's website and in the cd jacket.

http://www.delusionalmind.com/images/rick082106.jpg

Thanks for all your input on this matter and putting together some logos :) I decided to move all the posts from the Forum Dev. thread into here so we can keep things a little more organized :)

The feel we're going to be going for as a theme for the forum will be a classic feeling that is something like what Steve_M was describing, the smooth, organic type look, with showing off some of the great looking woods as used in the basses. Of course, later down the line, we'll try and provide as many choices for you guys as possible :)

As far as size restrictions, I have not had time to really play around with it too much, but so far, have not noticed any restrictions at all with it. I've just been using similar dimensions to that of the vBulletin logo in place at the moment.

About what is to be included, we're trying to incorporate the aspects of the bass guitar along with the double bass (and maybe even a bow) into the banner, and include the smith logo in there somewhere :cool:

wow..
 

Can everyone see this new look Mike just put up? I just logged out and in again to see if it had gone public. I guess he only made it for my viewing but it's beautiful with all wood backgrounds. Maybe I can convince him to let it run for a few days and see what others think about it.

Where is it Ken?

Where?
 

Must be on Mike's server. He had it on my screen but when I re-logged in I lost the URL he had me in. I will ask him to load it on the site ans see how it works color and design wise. It was very colorful and Earth at the same time the way he used and mixed the woods and backgrounds.

Yeah, was playing around with the themes last night, sorry, I don't want to make this available to the public just yet ;) Maybe I'll post a screenshot or two, get some feedback on what you guys think...

ok, attachment posted, what do you guys think? Personally, I thought I could maybe make the category strips perhaps slightly darker to make the text stand out better. Do you guys think the wood look is just too busy? I could play around with making them not as vivd, as I did with the maple background.

and yea, logo, we all know, its sketchy atm ;)

Can't determine.....
 

Mike, the attached .jpg file is so compressed (or reduced) that I can't determine how the final image will appear once it is put into production. :( Ahh...:rolleyes: ...I will try and download the file.....stay tuned!

Ahhh....
 

Mike, I was able to download the .jpg file you provided. By doing this, I was able to expand the pic and get much better detail! :D

I agree that the "text" does get lost in the busyness. I do think the "Category Strips" either need to be darkened or maybe choose another darker (less busy) wood grain, such as ebony or gaboon ebony?

In any case, I think you are on the right track and this will look great once finished! ;)

I tend to agree with Tim.

The trick is to show that there's a heirachy of meaning in how the banner is visually interpreted. The most important elements should be more intense (more contrast, stronger, warmer redder, colours etc) and arranged towards the front, while the less important elements have muted colours and are slightly cooler (bluer) and towards the back.

The eye is also drawn to areas of higher contrast which can sometimes be seen in paintings by the Old Masters. This technique is called 'forced contrast'. It helped the painter convey meaning and composition more successfully.

Whatever meaning you wish to be interpreted, you also have to make that meaning very literal and explicit. Too much clutter will make the layout appear confusing. People have a certain visual sensitivity and the most successful graphic design understands this range of sensitivity. BTW composition is also something to consider. The whole impression should be capable of being comprehended in a glance of about 0.5-2 seconds.

Mike, do you know what I was thinking when I read this?

Art Gallery.

Here are some pics I've grabbed off google images.

http://phillips.blogs.com/photos/unc...ery_of_pa2.jpg

http://www.bbc.co.uk/southyorkshire/...70_470x313.jpg

http://www.oar.uiuc.edu/future/photo...artgallery.jpg

http://www.soka.edu/uploaded/photos/...xh05Cwebsm.JPG

Do you notice anything common to all the interior designs? They've all used wood and contrasted it with just plain white. There's a visual warmth a lack of clutter and its clean looking without being sterile.

Maybe you could use the same combination of colours and texture? Remove all the keylines/borders from the forum and just use shapes to describe the areas.

The only fly in the ointment depends on how often you plan on updating the forum software? You'll have to create a new skin with each update unless you are sure you'll be able to import it from the old forum.

I never got a moment this weekend to work on a logo.. Just too much crap to do and not enough time to do it.. I'll spit something out at some point this week.

BTW, I really liked the theme Mike posted. I had no issue at all with it. It screamed wood!

Ok, I did this between calls at work today so it's not perfect, but here's my new entry.. It's a PNG file which uses transparency which Internet Explorer 6 and lower won't display right (even through the PNG spec has existed for about a decade, Microsoft just can't seem to implement any standard right)..

The head stocks should be standing against the background of whatever page it's on. The quilt will blend into the background as well.

The quilt is from my bass, the Smith headstock is from my bass, and the double bass headstock is the one in Ken's avatar. The writing is bump mapped cocobolo from this picture on Ken's site:
http://www.kensmithbasses.com/woodpa...o/Dcp00723.jpg

The word "Smith" was taken from Ken's site, and used as a mask for some tiger maple in this picture from Ken's site:
http://www.kensmithbasses.com/models...oltonLEbdy.jpg

Then it was used to bump map the cocobolo.

I still need to smooth the blending a little to get some of the sharp edges out of the blend into the background.

It's a large file due to being lossless. Feel free to convert it to some other format as long as the transparency is preserved.

Anyway, here it is:

http://www.delusionalmind.com/smithforumlogo2.png


I'm also thinking of replacing the faded quilt look with a beveled edge looking plank of quilt. Which do you guys think would look better?

Ok, I modified it a little to give a plank of wood look instead of the cloud of quilted maple thing in the previous.

PNG format
http://www.delusionalmind.com/smithforumlogo3.png

And since this version lends itself to GIF a little better here it is in that format, though the jagged edges turn me off in the GIF version:
http://www.delusionalmind.com/smithforumlogo3.gif

I got 10 minutes of free time at work today so this is what I did..

Let me know if there are more suggestions.

Humm?
 

Looking good. I personally would prefer the Basses on the wood and not on the sides. Other than that, I think it's a good entry for the contest.;)

What Contest? :D

Who said anything about a contest? :rolleyes:

What's the prize for the winner? :confused:

Winner of what? :eek:

Looking good although I think having more than one texture is a little confusing visually.

Are you talking about the texture on the word Smith? I used flamed maple to bump map some cocobolo thereby making a flamed cocobolo texture. The rest of the text is technically cocobolo as well but the lines are thin enough you really can't see the grain. I was going for multiple textures so the image wouldn't be too drab looking. I wanted to stick with wood textures due to the topic at hand, and it seems Mike is planning a wood theme for the forums.

Ken, I left the basses standing to the sides so they would stand against whatever background Mike uses for the forum. If he uses a wood texture for the background image, then the basses will stand against it instead of my quilt. It helps to make them more itegrated with the rest of the forum's look and not necessarily a part of the forum header.

Thats cool, but I just felt that you can still make it look wood themed without having wood used in every element. The textures can make it look a little cluttered visually. As with the gallery photos, sometimes if you have two elements that are contrasting in visual qualities, it can make either much more distinct.

The use of 'positive contrast' is used frequently by modernist architects such as Mies Van Der Rohe in furniture or built forms. Have a look at this piece of furniture as an example:

http://domus-direct.com/catalog/imag...an%20Large.jpg

Can you see how the leather is soft, dark, textured, matt, yielding whereas the chrome tubes are hard, reflective, glossy, smooth and structural? When you put them next to one another either element becomes that much more distinctive because of its contrasting relationship with the other element. Visually it also looks very clear about what the function of each element is, because of the way in which the finishes have been chosen - that is to say its easy to tell instinctively which bit was made for touching without necessarily knowing what the purpose of the object is.

The use of positive contrast was the kind of idea I was using as the basis for my suggestion :)

What do you think of a dark wood with brass lettering?

I think it looks fine ;) its been used a bit in board rooms and banks to great effect.

Perhaps you need other opinions though? :D

Mike, any word on when you plan to change the theme for the board? The default vBulletin just doesn't scream "Ken Smith" or "Bass" to me..

Thanks!

i´m glad that it does not scream;)