Tourism of the mind Part III: update: FADING animation!
Skyscraper ad:
I am thinking of animating it somehow... to catch the eye... thought of the idea of making him blink now and then. I saw that on another image that was otherwise completely still on another site, and usually you're not looking right at it when it happens, so you're like "Did I see that?" and then you do look right at it until it happens again. I suspect it's tricky, though.
Leaderboard ad:
To see it as something approaching full size, put the cursor on it, right-click and select "View image."
Update: leaderboard improved for type fuzziness. Not enough, though... every time I post it here it gets shrunk. Please just trust me that it's sharp at full size and just comment on the content 
Leaderboard ad, MamoKadril version:
At full size, the type is obsidian-speartip-sharp and really does pop... all right, maybe I can get it to show at 100% size by snipping the ad in half:
There. That's how sharp both the leaderboards are at full size. If it's still too hard to read, let me know.
Animated ad (I did it I did it!):
Text
inserted
for
no
other
reason
than
to
separate
the
two
animated
ads
so
you
don't
watch
both
at
once
which
otherwise
you can't help
(at least I can't)
Shel's first suggestions incorporated, pace also slowed down:
Now
once
again
I
am
inserting
otherwise
useless,
even
irritating,
text
as
a
division
between
two
otherwise
simultaneously
eye-drawing
animated
ads.
Shel's version with "He is":
Shel's suggestion for the skyscraper
"You are" Shel's version with faces faster (1 second each except Chevenga):
blahblah
ignore this
blahblah
ignore this
blahblah
ignore this
blahblah
ignore this
blahblah
ignore this
blahblah
ignore this
blahblah
ignore this
blahblah
ignore this
blahblah
ignore this
blahblah
ignore this
blahblah
ignore this
blahblah
ignore this
blahblah
ignore this
blahblah
ignore this
"He is" with... fades!
I was planning to try a fade between the last two frames also (CHEVENGA --> THE PHILOSOPHER IN ARMS) but ran out of time this morning. I'll do something with it later.
Comments & suggestions welcome, as always. With the animated ad, I am particularly interested to hear feedback on that with which which I am most inexperienced: the timing.
Trackback URL for this post:
Bookmark Us
Comments
Comments
Much prefer the skyscraper modified with Shel's suggestions. Animating the eye would work well. The crystal/buckle winking in the light?
It looks weird with the two distinctly different typefaces.
Orange leaderboard background needs to be not so bright; last letter is particularly unreadable against the pommel.
Text-to-background contrast is better with the mamoka, but the mamoka are not obvious. (This is not actually a major problem. It works alright.)
I agree - the pommel is distracting, not obviously a pommel.
Also why is he there lying down too? Took me 10min of staring at the full versions to see that, quick glance just registers it as a weird lighter patch of colour.
Animated square - using "you are" is confusing. I'm me. I don't recognise those other people in the gif.
Thanks for all this
Your comment about two typefaces was a reminder - I need to come up with an overall brand for the whole shebang - to go on all the book covers, at least some ads, etc. Part of that would be a font that is standardly used for titles in a standard colour. I am thinking part could be a logo.
Maybe I need to do a whole other blogpost for that...
Two opinions for the price of one!
First, the "skyscraper" ad: Since we only see one full eye of Chevenga's with him off center like that, a stronger composition would be to slide him a little more to the right, so that we see only half his face (so only one eye in the pic at all).
Second, the "leaderboard" ads: I showed these to my wife, and she couldn't read the first one, with the "fire" background, at all, even at full size. We also noticed that the partial hilt of Chirel poking over Chevenga's shoulder is a distracting element, especially since you really can't tell what it is if you haven't seen the original picture. We both liked the "MamoKadril" background better and found it much easier to read.
Third, the animated ads: I showed all three to my wife, and she agreed that adding Chevenga's name to his picture and then the last picture being a close-up seemed more effective to her. She also liked "He is" over "You are," for mostly the same reasons that I do.
She did feel the timing is off on the ad; she felt that the ad lingers too long on the faces of Esora-e, Niku and Kallijas before going to the text. I also thought perhaps a fade from face to text might be effective as well.
Third the preference for the
Third the preference for the MamoKadril background over the firey one, definitely easier to read thanks to better contrast. If you do tweak the centering of Chevenga on the skyscraper, I would suggest making sure you not cut him off so much that you can't see the crystal and wisdom tooth. Strange objects make it more interesting!
What I did
...was move him but not quite half so you can still see the crystal and wisdom tooth, because I thought the same thing as you, cap.
tiny nitpick on the
tiny nitpick on the She-version of the skyscraper: can you darken the bit of firey smokey behind the "a" in Passion? The reduced contrast there sort of loses the word.
I like both versions, really. Flip a coin if it was my call.
Done!
Won't flip a coin so much as test-drive both.
Maybe put a shadow on the
Maybe put a shadow on the side of Chevenga's face that's cut off, instead of moving the figure?
Too difficult
I know that sounds wussy, but because he is underlit it actually would be very hard to put a shadow on the side of his face and make it look right.
That doesn't sound wussy at
That doesn't sound wussy at all. I have very little knowledge of photo/graphic manipulation type stuff - all I ever do with my photography is a little sharpening and exposure and color correction.
It seemed like a way to make a more striking composition, but yeah, you don't want to get into "unreal" territory.
No way to do it but paint
...and tell you the truth, I'm sure I could do it, but it would be a PITA and probably take a while. And maybe it would never actually look good. I'm concentrating on other things: doing a read-through and edit where necessary of posts 1 to 169. That's the first two, or is it three? books, and once I do that I'll feel comfortable formatting them for PDF download from here (at a price) and e-book. (For fellow font geeks out there: I'm going to do it in Goudy Old Style, same font I write the master files in.)
Thanks to you and your wife!
You actually have never seen the first leaderboard at full size. The one you get when you hit "View image" is "something approaching" full size, not full size. At full size, the text is as sharp as it is in the full-size portion of the MamoKadril leaderboard.
Having said that, I like the MamoKadril one better myself because it has MamoKadril in it
Timing comment tabulated... oh wait... the timing on the faces of the three characters is different depending on which ad you're looking at. Did she mean the bottom two (which are the same that way)?
Considering I have no idea how to do a fade, I have someone whose name I will not mention after me to start running these ads in a week, and I really should do a read-through of posts 1-200 before that... well, I think that would be effective too, actually, and would love to see what it looks like, but it's not going to be the next thing I do.
Thanks again, you two!
Hmm, I just showed each one
Hmm, I just showed each one to her once, one after the other, and they all look pretty much the same to me, so I believe she thought that the text was more important than the face on all of them. ETA: Just checked with her, and she said the impression she had from all three ads is that the faces are on the screen too long.
I don't know that it's the sharpness of the text on the first leaderboard, but more the lack of contrast between the color of text used and the background. My wife is dyslexic, so if there's the least bit of difficulty in reading something like a banner ad, she's more likely to pass it by, which also means that a strong graphic design is more likely to make her want to put the effort into reading something that's not as easy for her to read.
If you are using Photoshop to put together the animation, let me know, and I can have my wife put together a short set of directions on how to do a fade - she's a registered Photoshop Goddess, between being a photographer and being a technical writer who puts together repair manuals for electronics for a living. Not that you need to feel any urgency to try doing a fade; just so that you know how for future reference and future ads, you know.
@Lauren, awesome, yes please!
Not going to turn that down!
I use Corel PhotoPaint instead of Adobe PhotoShop, but from what I've seen they are the same with names changed to protect the innocent... they use different terms, e.g. layer = object, selection = mask, and many more that I forget since it's years since I've seen PhotoShop. I'm sure I'll figure it out.
Re the faces being on too long, thanks for the input and I hope others will weigh in. What I realize is that text needs to be on for a certain amount of time because you have to read it, whereas an image you're just looking at and getting an impression, and if it's simple, you don't have to look at it long to get that impression. I also know our brains are wired to get impressions from faces very fast.
To me all the ads go too slow. Another friend of mine said I should make the text frames last long enough for a person to read the words aloud, so I did that and then lengthened the images enough to match. Of course the ads may seem slow because they are exceedingly familiar to me at this point. Let me play with that...
Two suggestions
For the "leaderboard" ad - maybe put a thin border around the text to make it "pop" a bit more?
For the animated ad - the next to last shot is in keeping with the faces that come before it, being just the portrait, but I wonder, since Chevenga is your "brand" here, if you might not put his name on that next to last frame so it's "bing-bing-bing-CHEVENGA-The Philosopher in Arms." Maybe even make the last frame, with the PA title, more of a close-up on the face?
Like he's coming at you
...heh.
Or coming closer to you, or you're getting closer to inside him. Definitely will try that.
The name thing makes a lot of sense if I am going for character name recognition, which I guess I should be, shouldn't I? Especially since it's also the URL. Once I get up to speed on animation, I'll play with these ideas. I have never done it so haven't developed the skills to anticipate, based on a plan, what will actually happen with an animated ad. I am expecting some weird surprises
One more suggestion
For the animated ad - maybe "He is" instead of "You are?"
"You are" makes me think of a game or something similar, instead of a book or movie.
I do think they're all quite nice ads as is, though.
First time I thought of this concept
...I used "He is". But then I wanted to change it to "You are" because it emphasizes the being-in-Chevenga's-shoes aspect of the book.
This will probably be one of those times where I do two versions and test them to see which gets the better response.
I'd like to see/hear about
I'd like to see/hear about the results of that test, because I am torn. I think "You are" version is more poetic, but "He is" is more 'correct' somehow? I dunno. Can't decide between them.
Oh wow, I think the
Oh wow, I think the skyscraper one came out great!
Banner... seems slightly harder to read, I don't know if it's because of no capitalization or the lighter background behind the text (fuzzy red-orange glow instead of the defined picture of him)... hm.
Hat tip to cap
The textual parts are my ideas generally but she's been focus-grouping/coaching me on them. The graphic concept for the skyscraper - text over image - was hers. Thanks cap!
(Haven't voted for her for Best Patron yet? What's keeping you??)
Yes, skyscraper....
....one is very visually pleasing.
The one-second face flashes....
... are too fast for me. I feel a bit rushed.
I'm never going to please everyone
...on this - but please, more people weigh in so that I get a better fix on where the median is.
Fades
...might help solve this dilemma. Those who are impatient for the next frame will see it coming, and those who are still reading will still be able to read for bit even as it is coming........
I am definitely an outlier
I am definitely an outlier then. I like the faster one (and might even shorten the time for the faces just a bit more), and I have enough time to read each text frame three times (literally). I am definitely above average in my reading speed, though, so I may not be representative of the average person.
I like the slower version
I like the slower version too. I feel panicked trying to read the faster one quickly enough
(I can do it, but it's not as pleasant an experience)
I read fast too....
.... I would guess that most of us voracious readers (and your target audience) do. I had plenty of TIME to read it, but I still felt hurried- like someone was behind me shoving me along. I like to have enough time to formulate an impression of what I just read before scurrying on, and savor pictures a bit. If it is interesting enough to hook me in, I will want to hang around till the end even if it's changing a bit slower than I'd like. If it was a really long slideshow, I'd be more worried about people with short attention spans getting bored and wandering away before it was finished, but it's a pretty brief presentation.