Avatar/Signature/Personal Text Thoughts

[Tsubasa]

They're a regular part of any forum.  Most everyone has any combination of the three.  Since I recently changed my avatar, I've been thinking a bit about how people have so many different approaches to their avatars/signatures/personal texts.  And I suppose, for lack of interesting discussion topics these days, I might as well make one where anyone can give input.  So what does everyone believe about/like to do/want to do with these elements?  They effectively define your identity on a faceless internet (although I suppose the Faniforums aren't so faceless to many of us).  What is your purpose for choosing what you do?  What do you like seeing?  On the converse, what do you detest seeing?  Share any thoughts you have on them.

I will start out with my thoughts:

Avatar:
The basic unit of identity on any forum.  Perhaps it's my background in design speaking up, but I believe that the avatar should be treated like any other design piece: it should have a concept and/or at least be composed with thought.  Far too often I see avatars which are little more than bad images cropped with no thought.  I hate that.  At the very least, the very basic avatar should be an image cropped to create an interesting composition.  This involves considering some to all of the basic principles of composition: focal point, positive/negative space, contrast, color, readability (or nonreadability if that's the intent), etc.  Basically, a piece where visual composition is paramount.  A lot of my avatars tend to turn out like this.  If I feel like putting more thought into it, the next step up is a piece with concept.  What does this mean?  A piece with an idea/purpose/narrative.  Basically something that will tell the viewer something, not just "I cropped an image."  I often don't do these because I'm lazy or don't have any concept, but they've happened.

On the technical side, I like avatars that aren't just squares.  There are times and reasons to use a square composition, but I find it far too restrictive and boring.  That being said, taller or wider avatars are nice.  I lean heavily towards the latter.  In fact, the 100x60 avatar has become something of a signature of mine.  Image format is almost always PNG unless I need it animated.  Easily the ideal choice in image formats for an avatar IMO: lossless, well supported across browsers, optional alpha-channel transparency, and it can't possibly be a large file size for something as small as an avatar.

I dislike seeing: thoughtless crops, extra artifacty jpegs, LiveJournal icons (you know one when you see one), crops that should have a border but don't, images that are needlessly large (both dimensions and/or file size), unreadable text (when it's obvious it should be readable).

As a last thought, what's up with dimensions that are just a little off?  Every once in a while I check image info on avatars and I often see stuff like 100x97, 80x81, etc.  Is it so hard to make them round, even numbers?

Signature:
I do not believe in the signature image.  I think it's a bit presumptuous to ask someone to load an extra 50k because you need to tell the world your name again and/or whatever worthless information you feel like you "need" to say.  I reserve the right to make an exception if there's an image I want to use to unify my avatar with my sig in a worthwhile concept, but this has basically never happened.  Nor do I ever see it happening in anyone else's case.  Moving on, there should be a reason why any piece of text is in a sig.  Far too often I see blurbs, quotes, etc. that no one could possibly care about besides the poster with the sig.  People naturally tend to read text if it's there.  Save me the effort of reading your inane stuff.

Personal Text:
This is fairly SMF-oriented stuff here, so considering how I haven't been on SMFs much except in the last year, I haven't had too much time to formulate too many thoughts on personal texts.  I just tend to put some kind of text that relates to my avatar.

[Lisu]

An interesting thought indeed! And I shall outline by you post but in Lisu perspective:

The avatar-
This is your face, not your image. A perfect square lays it down as to see who you are and nothing more (unless you need to take out some stuff and keep a pleasing size). Weird shapes is just being trendy. Secondly, is all about information. How much can you fit without fitting too much? Not everyone knows what you know, so can you outline the face in a clear manner, without extra useless info? Cutting and selection is cool, but a lot of times is just a mystery games for whoever catches you online.
I like: a clean cut face, with little decoration.  Also, personally, when you're character says the post. Meaning they face like they are talking in the forum.
Unlike: Pixelated/ bad images.  Is it really hard to take some effort to find a clean image?

The Sig-
This is you. Your thoughts, you self proclaimed 'thing'. In other places, it'd serve as advertisement for something of yours, but since we don't do much with our lives, that's not the case. It can be cool, or it can have something others don't want to see (thank you Adblock)
Like: An image that you need to say about you that your avi can't
Dislike: the current cool gif/image you and just NEED to put.  Also, good images, ruined by bad text.

The Personal Text-
this is you trying to be funny.  And if you smirk every time you read what witty thing you put, well then, at least you're happy.
don't care either way.

[mDuo13]

Avatars:
I think of an avatar as a single image that identifies the poster at a glance, or even out of the corner of one's eye. I use the same avatar (or a variation thereof) pretty much everywhere, and I change it as little as possible. In fact, I have been using the same image for years and years, though it has gradually decreased in size to be increasingly less ostentatious. I've never had a problem with odd shape/sizes such as 100x97 - if I have an image cropped the way I want it to be, I don't see a need to cut it to a particular size. However, I tend to think that designs that are taller than wide often work well for avatars, since usually you'll be representing a character or something, such that a bust-style image works quite well - however, this is limited by the following point:

My biggest dislike in avatars is when they are too large and they expand the cell for the user's post such that it contains undue amounts of empty space. Your avatar should not take up more space than your post. There are a lot of avatars that I don't really enjoy looking at, though.

Signatures:
In my view, a signature serves a purpose between that of an avatar and a graphic T-shirt or poster. It's an identifying graphic, but it is neither as steady or as restricted, and it offers a chance to show off a little extra personality. I've seen some very interesting things done with sigs - animated "shine" effects, "badges" to represent clubs and groups belonged to, and so forth. I think that most sig designs are pretty bleh, though, with poor color choices, cluttered design (especially ugly Photoshop overlayering) or obvious compression (since the image is so much larger, compression is a bigger issue overall).

On a more technical note, a sig should never cause horizontal scrolling, even on an 800x600 screen - but that still leaves a fair amount of width available (depending on the design of the forum, size of avatars, etc.). As for height, the shorter the better, but obviously some designs simply don't allow for a 500x50 image. Anything over about 200 pixels tall, though, is obscenely discourteous (especially when your sig is several times taller than your posts). As for sig text, at most two lines of something insightful or funny can be nice, but any more is likely to get old quickly.

However, the disparity in sizes of sig images (and the tendency of the size to creep up as long as admins don't crack down) and the overall sub-stellar quality of avatar images for almost all internet forums eventually grinds on my nerves. Recently, I started disabling avatars and sigs entirely, and I like the result a lot better as a whole. I mean, I kind of miss a couple avatars here or there, but overall, I feel like I'm getting a cleaner, more filtered version of the forums, so I'm not gonna change back any time soon. Then again, my taste has always been a little bit spartan. I ended up getting rid of my own sig since it's not like I saw it anyway.

Personal Text:
Since personal text feels like something of an upcoming feature, I'm interested in seeing how it evolves. It initially felt like custom titles (which is something that forum users always seem to desire irrationally) but lately people seem to have been adapting it to be a little more - captions for their avatars (like Tsubasa) or similar. I personally like to put something of a little welcome message in there, as a reference to something that's on my mind. (For example, I used .hack//G.U.'s "Welcome to The World" for a while; now I'm using the phrase that starts each ARIA chapter - roughly, "Greetings, how are you?") I haven't found anything I dislike about personal text yet; of course, I kind of like text, so that's to be expected.

Oh, and as for LiveJournal icons, some of them are highly recognizable, but I hardly spend any time on LJ so what I think constitutes a "LiveJournal icon" is a lot less inclusive than what some people consider. And I say, heck, at least some of those show some effort in the design.

[Chun]

A thread with a discussion longer than a couple a sentences. How rare.

Avatar:
I believe an avatar to be a small snapshot of self-expression, or generalizing in exactly what kind of interest that person holds at the moment or at a long instance. I dislike real-life facial profiles (which rarely happen on these environments), bland or pixelated shapecropping, and general screencaps of characters that simply don't express what kind of perspective that user holds, or anything insightful of the character itself. I started in a very custom-built avatar and signature community in Middle School at a forum called TSH (The Safe Haven), who deviated of what was known formerly as POL(Play Online)forums. Naturally this was a Squaresoft general chat area. Often there were competitions and personal touches to different characters chosen or references that people decided to crop or utilize. This kind of environment brought myself to thinking that an avatar's image should clearly define what kind of archetype the user is.

I enjoy simplicity in my design; no need for a color-offset, a fancy border that does more than a single black line will ever do, or any on-image text modification onto the image itself. If anything the avatar I have right now displays a character that I enjoy, and if people pick up on where that character is from they will understand what kind of characters I would enjoy in future projects/animations. I've always viewed golden-rectangle or same-sided avatars to be the best options, basically for uniformity's sake in the layout of a general bbs, save for a upright golden-rectangle (unless cleverly done in context of the original image). Any frame-breakers dishearten me, as any generic image does. As a former Super Moderator of 200 users, the avatar was a keypoint of how sever a warning should be issued in that person's presentation, as it often reflected how delinquent their behavior was. Often those that took time to find a meaningful image were generally nice users, whereas on the other hand generic cut-crops and other disdains clearly lacked maturity.

Signature:
The signature is an opportunity to give a bit more flair to an otherwise unknown user in a mass of many others that may encounter your personal opinions for the first time. Often 4-koma adaptations, well-cropped situational images (I.E. Marisa's Master Spark Animation in IaMP), and supplemental images to the avatar's theme (Double Character Appearance) give emphasis to the enthusiasm of the current interest of that user at the time, and possibly help predict favorable or unfavorable responses to certain topics.

I've always enjoyed the stylistically center sideways character image as if it was a stick poster under my post. Other times I think some signatures can be utilized as a badge of honor by saving bland text inputs under the images incorporating graphics in a "custom card" system (Yes, this contradicts my statement on Avatars with text and modifications. Mostly because I find the dimensions of an avatar somewhat restrictive as is so I tend to maximize my reasonable usage of that space). Personal text under the image that may or may not relate to the post I find often either adds humor (If the text is changed often), or increases insight into the character or user themselves.

The dimensions I utilize are partially drilled into my general bbs experience, but also because I can utilize the maximum amount of space (without breaking 600x800 frame data), with a reasonable size restriction (kb requirement).

Overall, it's for the "well, if someone reads or sees this perhaps it will peak an interest or make someone think" feel of it.

Personal Text:

These are often supplemental, twitter-like quote spaces that reveal more about the users preferences to topics and certain categories. They can range from clever contextual responses to basic jokes. I typically dislike profane responses as I enjoy a more "clean" feel to a message board, grammar and all parts of conduct. Generally these are blurbs you'd hear any day of a week of you were to meet them, or realize about them. Whimsical as they may be, they really are just the first two component's supplement.

~Chun

[Devereaux]

Damn, this is some profound shit right here.

Avatar: Fanime boards = anything that will piss someone off, make me laugh every time I see it, reference something no one else will understand (current), or reference how little I care about my standing or appearance on this forum.

Everywhere Else:  I create new avatars on a whim as I tend to create my avatars based on current strong emotions that I have, generally caused by artificial stimuli brought on through my own copious lifestyle. My avatars usually embody an idea or person as well I'll change my name with it to personify the full message. (Also as I have said before, as Dev is my real name, I need an epithet) A good example of this would be my current persona Naru. Naru came about from the word narcissistic which in turn personifies exactly how I am in regards to well...everything.

Signatures: Siggy's that involve pictures of any kind (including mine) are for little kids who want to show you something that they care about but you don't. Any other use of sig space is an attempt to show the world that you have friends by quoting "inside Jokes" or "phrases" or a failing attempt to be funny by spouting off a few lines of text that someone far funnier than you once spoke and then you had to take and put (out of context) under your lame ass posts, in an attempt to redeem yourself after hitting a few random keys and clicking "post" while you were busy foraging in the ass forest. The worst by far is when you quote yourself. That's like saying "Hey everyone! This right here, this is the best you can expect from me! This is pure gold, don't expect anything better to come flowing out of my shit sprayer"

Personal text: This is where people go to pretend to be Jappo. Because there is a major limit on words it makes it easy for people to cut and paste one word or a short phrase here in order to make themselves appear less white. (Google translator does not make you jappo.) This is also a place for people to add short remarks about their avatar in case people missed the humor or "hidden" meaning in which no one cared about in the first place.

All in all, you only really need an avatar to tell the world, "Hey! I am someone completely different from the douche who posted before me!" Everything else is just material to make me hate you or laugh at you harder than than I normally would have if I read your posts bare.

EDIT: Oh yea, people who put really big pictures in their sig space need to go shove their face into a large pvc pipe and then force the other end into a high powered rotary.

[XpHoBiaX]

BIG ass pics in sigs should be outlawed. >:/

That is my only gripe. I don't really care what people put in their avy or sig. I find them defining. I recognize people through their sig and avy. Although, sometimes it'd be nice to see the person change their avy or sig.

I choose mine mostly for attention whore purposes, or I am lazy...or a combo of the two. Right now I have a predator avatar. So you all know I am the Pred Chick. I'll eventually change it up. I don't even remember what is on my sig. Used to be a link to my VF profile. We'll find out when I post this ;)

The avatars and sigs I use on Vf are obviously different.
I have a shifty icon of myself looking back and forth. My name on there is XpHoBiaX as well, so it makes sense to have that avatar. People recognize me in the forumns and on the main message board. My signature is in Swedish, a slogan from Bilar candy. It's humorous to many international users on that board.

[SOawesomeness]

HC big walls of text...

[TC X0 Lt 0X]

Avatars: Your Image. What you like, what you look like, what you want to look like, what you may act like(Me, kinda), or anything else you can do with an image.

Signature: This is who you are, your signature. Unlike your Avatar, a Sig is usually expressed through words. Some, like me, have images as or in are signatures. This, to me, is fine, as long as it describes more about that person, rather than some random GIF. A signature can be anything from a list of your favorite food, to something you made, to what you do, and anything in between.

Personal Text: Not all forums have/allow PT. To me, it a extension of ones signature, but is expressed through words (text) alone. It should be used to display whats on your immediate mind, a answer to a question asked frequently to you, or, again, anything in between. Like my PT, I tell people to send me a friend request if they want to play Halo with me.

[Kazuko]

Avatar: Its more of what people are into, personality or just to be cool pffft my Icon is by Imai Kira because I love her art and I love angelic pretty  (lolita brand). It also has my fetish with bows, frills, sweet lolita and cord telephones

Sig: Meh its just some random statement, joke that people may or may not get kind of thing it normally is random I usually change mine because of some great injoke though it may change again but I want to make a new sig that goes in hand with my avatar

Personal text: its normally some statement but with mine its more of a true story. People who want to get into lolita fashion normally wear the most ugliest peices of work ever such as the whole horrible black and white lace combo outfit, cat ears, legwarmers and being such a weeaboo tard about it. Also the whole purchasing from ebay stores like momos handicrafts. FFFFF i gouge my eyes out everytime

[ININ]

My abstract, out of the ordinary thoughts :>

Avatars  I lack artistic creativity and knowledge.  When I see an avatar, I see an avatar.  I don't critique the avatar.  I use the avatar to quickly identify the poster by looking at the image.  If I don't recognize the avatar, I quickly move my eyes up to read the poster's name.  I memorized some avatars to help me identify the poster quickly; in addition, I skip some of the posts just by looking at the avatar.  Sorry, there are a few I don't care reading.

I don't like people changing the avatars constantly such as once a week or once a month.  I changed my avatar once since I joined in June 2004.  My avatar is a scanned image--another example of my lack of artistic creativity.

Avatars showing the poster's face is OK.

Signature I agree with Tsubasa 100%.  I deactivate the signatures when I log on and read the posts.  The reason is signatures makes reading the posts longer for me.  I see the signatures when I lurk occasionally.  The images in the signatures are unnecessary especially with those with slower internet connection.  I clicked on a link once or twice.

Personal Text Some personal texts the person tries to be funny and he or she is really not.  I think personal texts can portray the poster in a bad way and the poster doesn't know it.  If the poster, however, is happy and receives feedback from the person text, kudos to the poster XD

[XpHoBiaX]

rather than some random GIF

Damn, I have a random GIF.

[Tsubasa]

I like the kind of responses being generated here.  There are some really interesting things being brought up.

-I like how I've created an avatar or two which are diametrically opposed to what Lisu believes an avatar should be. XD;
-I don't necessarily agree with the omission of text on avvies by Chun's rationale.  Nor do I agree about nonsquare/rectangle-based avvies being a bad thing.  This is a natural extension of my belief that avvies should be taken as a design piece and, as such, shouldn't have such stringent restrictions.
-Dev's opinions are a great read overall. XD
-I used to be the unchanging avvy club with mDuo and ININ, but I wanted some more opportunities to explore the avatar as a format for design.  To my credit, I kept the same avatar for 4 years I believe.

[mDuo13]

Off-topic: Kazuko, is it just me, or have you become a lot more bitter lately? All I hear out of you anymore is complaining about weeaboo wannabe-gothlolis.

Chiri Kcrinh: So?

Personal text: This is where people go to pretend to be Jappo.

True story.

600x800 frame data

Uhhhh... "frame data"? Been reading too much fighting-game theory lately? Also, what, does your monitor tatte?

That brings me to an interesting point, though. Most people agree that huge sig images are a bad idea. However, I generally hear a lot less agreement about what's "too big". The official rules of the forum seem to have gone away (uh oh) but, in the past there was a limit for the height and for the "weight" (file size) of images used in sigs. I'm not sure about avatars. Now, if I were making the rules, I'd set the height limit at no more than 200px, possibly less (like 100 or 150) and the width at about 500px. As for weight, more than 50k is a lot to download on a dialup (or cell phone) connection, but a getting under 30k can require a lot of image compression, so images are fated to look bad, so I'd set a generous 50 or maybe even 60k limit. But, obviously, I'm not making the rules, nor should I be (considering my previously stated preference for no sig images whatsoever). What do the rest of you think?

[Kazuko]

Off-topic: Kazuko, is it just me, or have you become a lot more bitter lately? All I hear out of you anymore is complaining about weeaboo wannabe-gothlolis.

going through a few things made me a bit bitter I do apologize but then again there are forums of lolita fashion that i do go to see some image and then give some helpful pointers, the OP complains she did a good job blah blah blah the whole lolita lifestyle myth and such other things. Especially a vouge entry months back that featured a hiddeous lolita dress with a cat ears and the girl spouting off that shes otaku. It was a bit weird

[Devereaux]

-Dev's opinions are a great read overall. XD

This man speaks the truth

I kept the same avatar for 4 years I believe.

Shit hella threw me off when you changed it.

Off-topic: Kazuko, is it just me, or have you become a lot more bitter lately? All I hear out of you anymore is complaining about weeaboo wannabe-gothlolis.

going through a few things made me a bit bitter I do apologize but then again there are forums of lolita fashion that i do go to see some image and then give some helpful pointers, the OP complains she did a good job blah blah blah the whole lolita lifestyle myth and such other things. Especially a vouge entry months back that featured a hiddeous lolita dress with a cat ears and the girl spouting off that shes otaku. It was a bit weird

Off topic. The only places "lolita fashion" belong are on paper with lots of stars and hearts surrounding it, (This is mandatory, so when people like me who happen to be looking for a good read spot it we know to skip it because it's just another shitty shojo manga) on slutty, half starved, male V-kei members trying to break into the scene, or Jappo girls trying to make a quick yen in Akihabara.

[ININ]

Continuing off-topic:  I have noticed many people being bitter at work and around my surroundings lately.  Can it be the weather?  Or the upcoming election?  Economy?  Or a combination?  Recently I have been making so many memory mental mistakes and forgetting  :-[  I do admit my mistakes and apologize when I screw up.

If there are signature rules, my opinion is the length and width is the size like banners. 200x500 is a reasonable size.  And maximum file size 50k and below.

[XpHoBiaX]

Off-topic: Kazuko, is it just me, or have you become a lot more bitter lately? All I hear out of you anymore is complaining about weeaboo wannabe-gothlolis.

going through a few things made me a bit bitter I do apologize but then again there are forums of lolita fashion that i do go to see some image and then give some helpful pointers, the OP complains she did a good job blah blah blah the whole lolita lifestyle myth and such other things. Especially a vouge entry months back that featured a hiddeous lolita dress with a cat ears and the girl spouting off that shes otaku. It was a bit weird

I wuv yous Kazuko. ;) Even though we haven't met and I stalk you. O_o
lol <3

[JohnnyAR]

I change my avatar depending how I'm feeling or what is on my mind. What mood does my avatar look like he is in? Bored? Tired? or is does he look like he is in a neutral mood?

[mDuo13]

200x500 is a reasonable size.

Okay, this is the same thing I was teasing Chun about. I may as well say it more explicitly.

Image dimensions are given in a Width x Height format. Always. Width first, height second. 200x500 would be a moderately narrow, very tall image. In a sig, that would be bad.

As for the off-topic: Yeah, I suspect it's a combination of end-of-summer blues and the economy. Election year's probably not helping.

[sysadmin]

I'm happy with 600x200 for total sig area (pictures or text).
If the sig is larger than your post, then you're doing it wrong.

100x125 for the avatar is fine.  Yes, that's a 5:4 height:width ratio.

I generally care less about dialup users.
I will become more annoyed with "slow image hosts" or "anything ugly, flashing" or to a lesser extent "anything lame or stupid".

I swear there's some kind of "turn off other people's signature" option, though.

I appreciate the thread, although you generally can put these in the "about the forums" area.