Thank you so much. TO THE SKETCHBOOOK

Whoa, thats heavy. I don't think i'm very wise yet, lol, far from it im afraid. I think I have met some pretty wise teachers though, the teachers and the way they make me feel are the inspiration for the piece so hopefully it will be a good fit for this.

Friggen awesome guys keep it up

Excited to see this get underway

Be sure to upload your progress if you can!

Should we go ahead and just use this thread for posting progress stuff?

Anyway, here's a thought. Maybe before we get too deep into this we should think about agreeing on a final overall format for the page, so each of us can know the shape we are working within. Among other things, it would allow us to take full advantage of the odd size and shape of each of our pieces.

My inclination is to go with a format that allows for the greatest size of each image. I do like the circular Aya badge, but that inside row ends up being pretty small. The existing format allows all of the images to be roughly the same size.

On the other hand, I'm down with the challenge of making the most of a small, odd shaped space, if the overall page is amazing enough.

One Suggestion: Aim for depth. This is one of the things that makes the current front page so great. You can feel like entering a different space. I'm curious to see how this will turn out. I'm a bit sceptical because it might be kinda hard to blend different styles. It might be a better idea to have a very small team of 1-2 to design the overall structure and define the style and have others contribute shapes, forms, smaller "blendable" pieces of the whole thing.

Would we not be able to get the images even bigger ? The current graphic is sort of cut down at the sides to make it square, could we not fill the page this time to get a bit more out of the work ?

i loves orion

Lots of good suggestions.

I agree with Guyomech and Obliguhl to create an overall format first and then allow everyone to create workable pieces.

Orion's suggestion is spot on too. Most laptops and displays these days are setup for HD and widescreen so it makes sense to keep up with the times. Plus it would be super sweet to see the splash screen fill a huge 1080p display.

One thing about sizing...
The front page at the moment doesn't 'auto resize' for small Netbooks...
Mine runs at 1024x600 and most of the graphic gets cut off...

Just a heads up for the coding later...

Seriously thinking about the FAQ section at the mo...

Do it cyb...that last piece of yours was beautiful!

im going to try and get my plans finalised this week and upload the sketches to this thread, if other people are still in the planning phase maybe we could all do the same?

im thinking this way we could see how blendable they all look, and (possibly) add some sort of small theme common to all of them (like maby the light source in all of them is the same colour, or there is dna in all of them- just something to have them gell better in the final composition)

True. I'm sure it's possible to have the server detect the client resolution and pull one of several different sizes. The questions are: how much of a pain it would be and is it even worth it?



I seriously think you should, as Snozz said, your last piece was beautiful and I was secretly hoping you'd want to participate with this. If you'd like to gank links section instead of faq lemme know. I've got some ideas for each.



I'm down for that. I'm sure my rough sketches won't be much to look at but hopefully I'll be able to polish them up with some 3D action.



This might not be a bad idea. I was planning on having some DNA in mine.

Well how can I say no to that....Yep count me in for the FAQ...

I was wondering about the formatting of the works...

I usually start with a 1920x1080 (180ppi rez) format to fit the largest of monitors. Therefore downsizing losslessy is easier than up sizing (pixel loss).
I guess 72ppi is normal for http sites.

Since things start to get quite detailed and intricate...we will need to arrive at a 'shape' for the partitions...
Or shall we all submit in 'monitor' format and make them fit to whatever shape by cropping?

A few things to iron out as we go along...

Fire up the RAM...we're off...

Yeah I was thinking alot about that, but that would mean that we have to decide on the form right now and then if even a better form arises later, the artwork that was optimized for the first form might look weird on the new form. So I just thought that a rectangle 4:3 would be the most optimal since you could crop it in anyway you want after it's done. If you crop too much to begin with, it might be hard to go back.


Yeah that was the idea.


Yes that is actually possible, with javascript newer browsers can detect the screen resolution of the user.. so yeah that was a really great idea Orion. This way the graphic can be even more intricate depending on the user resolution.. I'll have to update the OP.


Hehe yeah I'm curious about that too, but I'm more optimistic than sceptical.. I'm fairly confident there will be a way to make them adjusted and arranged in a way that will look right. Anyway I really like the idea that there will be so many "whole" nexian visions on one page instead of just 1 or 2..


And, excellent decision cyb!

We can always crop our individual parts to fit, but I still believe that knowing the size and shape of our canvases ahead of time would be helpful for us, and prevent potential time wastage.

I was going to suggest pulling a common theme through the whole thing, but at the same time we don't want too many restrictions. But here are some thoughts:

1) as suggested earlier, lighting. Simplest version of this is one where the central logo is the light source and we all create our pieces with that in mind

2) vector patterns through all our backgrounds. We each get a different one- flower of life, honeycomb, Penrose tiling etc. we then agree on a standardized density, vector width etc

3) we choose a background theme to all share (Hubble?)

4) a single large geometric design weaves through all parts of the design, which serves as background for our individual parts.

Just a few thoughts. I agree that we should start posting our rough sketches early on, which would allow us to discuss the finish on all parts of the project as it is coming together.

We should ask Traveler about scalability, then design as large as possible.

Cyb: great that you're on board... You've really been tearing it up lately!

now were talkin!

Guyomech: I agree, if we knew the shape we were working with we could take advantage of the negative space alot better. This would help the composition of the individual peice, and help it all fit together and flow as a whole too.

Stalepixel: I agree with that as well. I for one havnt even posted any art here yet so this weekend ill make sure to post the sketch im workin on for this and some other stuff too so you guys can get an idea of my style and skill level.

Also on that note I want to say: I dont want to sound like im not confident in my abiliities or anything, but I understand this image is pretty important, This is going to provide the new users with their first impression of the Nexus, and alot of people are going to be seeing it everyday (anybody know about how many that is btw?). So I dont think we should settle on this. Its gotta be top notch. So I want to make it clear that if my peice or style just isnt fitting with the overall image, my ego might not like it very much but no hard feelings. In my opinion this image is too important to worry about petty things like that.

Lol now i see by the time it took me to type this up there are 2 more responses, to be continued....

This is exactly how I feel about it too. I'm working in unfamiliar territory to try to get my vision onto the screen and I'm not 100% positive I can pull it off. If I can't pull it off for whatever reason, the image doesn't do the rest of the piece justice OR if someone with more skill wants a spot, I'll withdraw from this. Until that happens, I'm giving this project my 100%.

Those are really good suggestions Guyomech, and I completely agree that it would be better to have as many clues about the final form as possible, and to decide on some sort of central theme for all of them. But somehow I felt like that would be really hard to organize among 8 people. But actually it's not, now that you suggested some of those things..

I'll try to summon some kind of a mindblowing design tonight, which will try to take things from all the suggestions here ..

And also anyone else can upload designs for the form too, I have no idea why I somehow assumed the role of the link unifier, but I'm not at all, I just wanted see this thing get started, as complex as it initially sounded like...

It's going to be tricky without a central image...

I was going to suggest (since it is a recurring theme since..forever) that a Chrysanthemum is formed and we each get a set of petals (or something like that)...

Text is going to be an issue as well since it will overlay the images....

Or

Perhaps we all get the Text itself (nice simple sans serif font) and we all design for the inside of the text form. That way the Text can be placed wherever and our 'art' will be seen as a window into the Text (like stained glass)

some thoughts anyway...