Before we go any further, I'd first like to say that this topic isn't teaching you "how to make a sig" in the conventional meaning of the word. If you want some tutorial that will teach you how to do cool things with brushes and filters and text and shit, you're in the wrong place. This isn't a tutorial on how to use PS in a certain way. This thread teaches you the stuff the things you don't learn from reading tutorials - like whether Arial is a good font to use, why your render shouldn't be some bloated thing that takes up half the useful space in a sig, and where exactly to "put your render" when you inevitably do end up following some guy's tutorial that involves C4Ds and lah-de-dah-look-at-me lens flares. Right, you might know me as the guy who does the sigs in Paint. That's very correct - however, I've also got a few years of Photoshop sig construction under my belt. Not that this is actually important - the principles here apply to anything you make, in ANY program. It's just that some people will ask "well, what does he know about sigs if all he does is dick around in Paint?". Here's your validation, you ungrateful SOBs. Sig composition is essentially the knowledge of what arrangement of factors used in a sig will produce an aesthetically pleasing (pretty) result. The positioning of renders and text are chief among these, but sizing, colours and mood also play a big part. I'll start with a look into focal points. That's a little something I whipped up for the purposes of this topic. It deviates from what I'm about to teach, but that's fine, since it's me and you'll still learn regardless. Anyway, there are (due to some quirk of the human mind) points on a signature which the human eye will naturally drift to. An easy way to find all the possible points (although only five are of particular interest) is to divide your sig into thirds on each axis, which will give you nine seperate and equal rectangles which act like a sort of jigsaw puzzle. We're not interested in the rectangles themselves, though - it's the lines which are important, or to be more specific, the intersections thereof. There are also nine of these, which I prefer to divide into five "major" points and four "minor" points. For the purpose of this exercise, I've highlighted the five "major" focal points below: Ideally, you will want something going on at two or three focus points out of five. The center one serves a double purpose - if you imagine it as the middle of an old-fashioned set of scales, you can judge if there is too much going on at one side of the signature and adjust the balancing factors (your render positioning, text positioning, fancy background tricks) accordingly. You'll notice that I don't have much going on at exactly the points I've described. This is true. However, you'll also notice that when the eye moves from one focal point to another, it has to go through a point of interest. The actual busy points are also enclosed in small focal triangles, which also draw attention. Also of note is that the text isn't flashy, ostentatious or even an integral part of the sig. If your render has a lot of cool stuff going on with flashy lights and colours, don't be afraid to tone it down a little for the text, maybe relegate it to a small balance role like was done here. By putting the text where it is, the effect of the large render bringing the sig off-balance is greatly reduced, as it gives the viewer something to look at on the right hand side. The text here "anchors" the sig by providing an opposing weight. Having said that, you WILL need another rather heavy focal on the side you plan to put the text on if it's done like this, otherwise your text will just appear dinky and dwarfed by your render. If you don't, it should get prettied up and put in the minor focal point for that side to act as balance. To wrap this lesson up, focal points are incredibly important. Some people have a natural grasp on this and already do it without knowing the specifics, some don't. The thing is that people who can effectively exploit focal points will always catch the eye of people with their own signatures, even if they show little else in the way of technical skill. More chapters in this thread to come, but discussion and questions are welcomed.
It’s almost as if you were waiting for someone to doubt you, to then shove this in their face. Some nice basic tips, all clear and precisely explained, good stuff to keep in mind. moar plz
