Custom Made Avatars That Aren’t Rubbish
I have one rather large issue when it comes to designing blogs, which is that commenters often haven’t signed up to Gravatar. Which I would encourage you all to do, by the way. Therefore they have the boring default avatar which isn’t very colourful or exciting.
There are some alternatives, with various random shapes, patterns, monsters and triangular things being generated for users that have no avatars. These are an acceptable solution but from a design point of view, I don’t really like them! They’re often jagged and unattractive and wouldn’t fit in to the overal aesthetic of many of the sites I design.
Therefore I decided to take the task upon myself of creating a series of really simple avatars that all have the same theme but all look different enough to add a bit of personality to the comments section. And I came up with these:
Simple cartoon faces on a plain coloured background. These aren’t anything particularly new or different but they do the job. They have enough character to bring some life and personality to the comments section, without being distracting or unsightly.
One suggestion from George Woodliff-Stanley on Forrst was to change the face depending on the user’s activity or mood. For example, posting lots of well thought-out comments would gain you the intelligent looking face, whereas not posting anything for a long time would give you the sleeping avatar. Not sure how do-able this is (I certainly wouldn’t know how) but it’s a great idea.
I might be trying to implement these into the comments section here on my website in the near future. And if I get enough interest, I might release them for the design community too. Feel free to share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments.
U January 4, 2011Tweet
7 Responses to Custom Made Avatars That Aren’t Rubbish
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ogvidius says:
Hi James. They’re not available yet, but they will be soon. I’m still working on them. I’ll be doing some more faces and then I’ll try and implement them on this blog. I’ve had some people suggest making them into a wordpress plugin too so I’ll probably release a plugin and a download of all the files in PSD and vector format. Glad you like them
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George Woodliff-Stanley says:
Hey, thanks for mentioning my idea. I was just trying out whatpageofgoogleamion.com (also from Forrst) and found this when I searched my name.
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Hector says:
Ahh an opportunity for me to test Gravatar! Of the aforementioned Custom Avatars – Conceptually, an excellent way to uphold the design integrity of a BLOG with a lot of posts however, and ironically, if you sprinkle in the gravatar avatars… well.. Oh just kidding! I agree it is a vast improvement on any look and feel. And hey, if a user doesn’t like the gift of a quick choice instead of those boring generic avatars then perhaps it would be that little push towards Gravatar. Great site Oggy!
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Andrew Volk says:
I’m totally with you. A default/blank avatar is a true bummer. Truthfully though, I just don’t think enough people know about Gravatar. What a shame!
I think that a few darker versions of the faces would be a delightful addition to the set you created. Great work! I especially enjoy #10.
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ogvidius says:
Good point. I don’t think there’s many people that know about Gravatar, or that see much of a reason to use them if they don’t comment on blogs regularly. Perhaps there should be a little link somewhere near the comments section saying ‘sign up to Gravatar here to get your own avatar’. I probably will make some darker ones too. Thanks!
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Andrew Volk says:
Awesome idea! Maybe even make the call-to-action a little personable. Something like “Help make my blog even better by adding your pretty face to it using Gravatar.”
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Nice work! I saw this on Forrst and had a question – is there a PSD for these?
-James