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.
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.