Medals Graphic Update

**Spiff** · February 24, 2009, 06:16 PM

Well i was thinking how to redo the medals we currently have to make them more visually consistent. I couldn't really think of a good way to do ith other than colour coding and boxing them off.

Feel free to hate them, I just wanted to take a stab at what i consider to be a problem:

This way there are no tiling issues and no size issues since they share a common template.

35x35
Curial:

Staff:

Common Community:

Total War:

Special:

30x30:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**Augustus Lucifer** · February 24, 2009, 06:28 PM

I like them, but my only problem is that it's still hard to tell bronze from gold on some of them. They could also be a little bigger, not as big as Opifex now but the size of maces now is fitting.

**Spiff** · February 24, 2009, 06:38 PM

Well I dont especially feel like redoing all 36 or so - so its kind of an "as is" thread in that regard

. For now anyway.

I agree about the gold thing but it wasnt really the point, i simply wanted to make them distinguishable at a glance and more consistent.

30x30 seemed like a nice round number at the time.

**Pontifex Maximus** · February 24, 2009, 06:43 PM

I don't really see a need for the change. Seems like from eyeballing, my quill and mace are almost identical, but the other is considerably smaller. Perhaps we should just adjust the individual award that is not up to par instead of redoing the entire thing?

**Spiff** · February 24, 2009, 06:56 PM

I dont really see it as redoing the whole thing, its more categorising what we currently have into their relevant parts of the forum.

I mean things like the scribes quill, it isn't really obvious what that's for without going and reading about it - you need to actually click on it and navigate away from the page

but it all medals for staff positions were coloured in the same way (ie red in this case) then it would become clear over time where someones interests are just by glancing at their medals.

For example in the case of Mim you can see he's been heavily involved in two aspects of the site (curia and staff) and a little bit of another. You can then hover over the individual awards to see what colour ties to what aspect.

I also think colour coding them will encourage people to find out about them, at the moment the medals are kind of obscure in terms of name and graphic.

**Augustus Lucifer** · February 24, 2009, 07:01 PM

Originally Posted by Spiff

I dont really see it as redoing the whole thing, its more categorising what we currently have into their relevant parts of the forum.

I mean things like the scribes quill, it isn't really obvious what that's for without going and reading about it - you need to actually click on it and navigate away from the page

but it all medals for staff positions were coloured in the same way (ie red in this case) then it would become clear over time where someones interests are just by glancing at their medals.

For example in the case of Mim you can see he's been heavily involved in two aspects of the site (curia and staff) and a little bit of another. You can then hover over the individual awards to see what colour ties to what aspect.

I also think colour coding them will encourage people to find out about them, at the moment the medals are kind of obscure in terms of name and graphic.

If figuring out what a member is interested in is the goal, might not be so effective(most members of the site are involved in the TW side but most of the associated medals are harder to obtain). At any rate the degrees and the prof robe need to go under Total War if that is the aim, since the Uni is purely modding-centric.

**Spiff** · February 24, 2009, 07:05 PM

The university isnt really TW specific, it can be about anything potentially if someone is willing to run the class. Things like Java certainly arent TW related, and modeling and texturing are only indirectly.

Either way i chose CC to balance the current number of medals out.

**GrnEyedDvl** · February 24, 2009, 06:57 PM

I agree that they size and styles need to be more consistent. Other than that I dont care what they look like.

**Hunter Makoy** · February 24, 2009, 07:17 PM

Originally Posted by GrnEyedDvl

I agree that they size and styles need to be more consistent. Other than that I dont care what they look like.

yes, your medals in particular look like they were lined up by a 3 year old.

They'd probably look batter if it wasn't for that globe. AL's medals for instance look alright side by side.

As I mentioned in Spiff's Q&S thread, is there a need for backgrounds?

**Pontifex Maximus** · February 24, 2009, 07:47 PM

Ah I see. I think it would be good to have a color coded system, but the icons look a bit small. Now, my eyesight is appalling, but even with my glasses on I can barely see that. Perhaps make them a tad bigger? I'm sorry if this is a work in progress as far as the icons are concerned and I am wasting your time.

**Bokks** · February 24, 2009, 07:51 PM

Thank you, Spiff! I've thought for a while now that they should all be the same size, specifically, the Opifex/Phalera inconsistency.

And the idea to color code the background is superb!

I definately support this sort of thing, and I completely agree with Augustus for the ways that it can be made better.

Great job!

edit
What's that award between asterix's loincloth and divus? I don't recognize it...

**Augustus Lucifer** · February 24, 2009, 08:07 PM

Originally Posted by Bokks

edit
What's that award between asterix's loincloth and divus? I don't recognize it...

Barbie Faerie Award

It was given to Prof for making the April Fools Day Barbie skin.

**pannonian** · February 24, 2009, 08:16 PM

Could you have a look at this, this and this?

**Hunter Makoy** · February 24, 2009, 08:28 PM

I particularly like the bar set up pann. If it can be done so that they can be easily distinguished I think that would look best.

**Justinian** · February 24, 2009, 08:34 PM

I dislike the ribbons myself. I think it jars with the current look and feel of our forums.

**Hunter Makoy** · February 24, 2009, 08:52 PM

what do you think would be the best solution Justinian?

**Bokks** · February 24, 2009, 11:00 PM

Originally Posted by Augustus Lucifer

Barbie Faerie Award

It was given to Prof for making the April Fools Day Barbie skin.

Oh yeah! Thanks AL, I completely forgot about that! I haven't seen Prof in a while...

Originally Posted by Justinian

I dislike the ribbons myself. I think it jars with the current look and feel of our forums.

I do too. I mean, if you had 30 different ribbons it'd look cool, but who get's 30 medals?

Originally Posted by Hunter Makoy

what do you think would be the best solution Justinian?

Well, personally I think this is (bigger, of course, but that's been said)
The cool thing about the color coding system is that it combines the best of the medals with the best of the ribbons.

And then members with many medals won't have a page that looks like a three year old made it with eyes sewn shut.

**Hunter Makoy** · February 25, 2009, 12:16 AM

Originally Posted by Bokks

Well, personally I think this is (bigger, of course, but that's been said)
The cool thing about the color coding system is that it combines the best of the medals with the best of the ribbons.

And then members with many medals won't have a page that looks like a three year old made it with eyes sewn shut.

Well Justinian I think part of the idea was was to have it so that instead of having bronze/silver/gold for the services, you got a ribbon or something every 3 months. Your right, it would look better if everyone had 4 or more medals. What would look really dope is if you had all the service medals and the like as ribbons, and then had stuff like Opifex as a hanging medal that was underneath. That would kick ass. But again when there are only a few people who have tons of medals it looks a bit out of place.

I agree the color coding is nice, I just don't personally like the color choices, some of it makes it harder to tell which medal is which, that and it needs to be a bit bigger.

**Spiff** · February 25, 2009, 12:34 AM

Well i figured RGB was the best combination of colours to use, and then a neutral default brownish colour for the curial ones.

Theyre light so they dont pull your eye too much from the actual post, dark red/green/blue and a bigger size would be fairly distracting compared to the rest of the elements nearby (ie rep and rank images). I know its impossible to get colours that everyone's going to be happy with so i just went with what i thought looked good enough.

Everyone seems to agree on the point that they should be bigger anyway, so ill try 35x35 at some point.

**sinople** · March 10, 2009, 11:22 AM

Perhaps I arrived to late, but why not asking to the man who will win the Badges Competition to do some new medals in the same kind as he did the badges.