Everyone remembers the last official contest, the Miss S2C Pageant, right? Well this time around, we are holding a contest for you to show us your creativity and graphic design talent by making S2C’s brand new front page banner and forum banner! If you all can remember back far enough, it was Enayla’s ‘Cecilia Lynn’ who won. Because Enayla disappeared on us for quite some time, we have decided to use the runner-up’s Sim as the face on the new banner. After all, the runner-up in a beauty contest must take over when the winner cannot fulfill her duties!

Therefore, HystericalParoxysm’s ‘Sophia de Muse’ will be the new face of S2C and will be featured in your rendition of the front page banner. There is no theme for these banners – you can do whatever you want! The main requirement is that the banners be exactly the dimensions listed below:

940x130 (front page banner)
297x60 (forum banner)

These are the banners as of now:

Front Page Banner
Forum Banner

This contest is open to whoever would like to participate, and it will run for 10 days. The first 3 days are for questions, and the last 7 will be for submissions. This means that you must submit your final entries on or before 3.27.07 @ 9:00pm (US Central Time). You may only submit one set of banners MAXIMUM. There are pictures of HystericalParoxysm’s ‘Sophia de Muse’ linked in this thread, which are the pictures you must use for the banner.

If there is a specific pose for the picture you would like to use for your banner, you can PM HystericalParoxysm and ask her politely to take a picture of her Sim in that specific pose for you. You may also request a specific NON PAY hairstyle for ‘Sophia’ to sport in the pose request. If you choose to PM HystericalParoxysm with a special pose/non-pay hair request picture, you MUST follow this example template for your PM:

Hair: Nouk’s Dreads [link]
Pose: “Looking Up In Awe” OfB Reaction Tester from JD Movies; Customer - Browse - High - C [4]

If you do not provide thorough information, including direct links to the non-pay hair of your choice, your request will be rejected.

There is no rule as to how many pictures may be used in the banner. This contest will be judged by the staff, and the winner will be announced on this thread.

*** Remember! You MUST be able to provide the staff with a layer-separated PSD or other layer-separated document for a commonly usable program if you win, so keep that in mind when creating your banner.

DO NOT CHATTER!!! This thread will ONLY be used for questions and entries. Thats it. Additionally, there will not be a separate chatter thread (like with the Miss S2C Pageant). If you fail to follow that rule, you will be officially warned for intentionally disregarding the instructions of a moderator.

RULES:
- You must include “The Sims 2 Community” name on your banners
- You must use pictures of HystericalParoxysm’s Sim in the link below (or follow the example template above for a specific pose)
- The banners must be 940 (length) x 130 (height) AND 297 (length) x 60 (height)
- You can only submit a maximum of one set of banners
- You must submit your final entry/entries on or before 3.27.07 @ 9:00pm (US Central Time).
- DO NOT CHATTER. AT ALL.

Contestant List
01. helaene
02. 123321
03. stylequeen
04. joanne_8121
05. corvidophile2
06. crocobaura
07. auroraspirit
08. pickpock
09. coolh5000
10. footballer_17
11. squall117
12. redwing
13. Small Town Sim
14. pacotacoplayer
15. purplestarz2006
16. mumof5ferals
17. 19BlkBrdFly83
18. pixie
19. IntrepidLlama
20. emcake
21. FireAzor
22. Nouk
23. SarahKjrsten
24. sidneydoj
25. Daan1302
26. sims2germany
27. Charmy
28. CherificSim
29. kowaizo
30. Urbanique
31. Wallpaper
32. crzyladyi
33. treeag
34. Mickey
35. Sisaly
36. Starrats
37. MizzesSimmer
38. asyouwish
39. Ciane
40. bluemoon11

For the small banner, do we put poses of Sophia? Or just the community logo?

Do we need to put the same Sims2Community logo on the big and small banner (the text) or do we make our own text?

For the forum banner, it would be nice to keep it mainly text (ie "The Sims 2 Community" or another version of our site names). However, if you would like to include a small picture of Sophia, that is your call. Its definitely not necessary but will not be counted against your score.

You can use the existing S2C text, make your own or use any pre-made text you may have (Times, Arial, etc).

I have a question;
If we don't request a pose from HP, and use existing pictures, will that be counted against us?

And I have another question; When requesting a pose from HP, can we also request that it be on a solid background?

This looks so fun!

Of course it wont count against you if you dont request a pose from HystericalParoxysm.

HystericalParoxysm will be putting all pose requests on a solid background. Its up to her to decide which color background she will use for the requested poses.

Ah, okay. Thanks for clearing that up.


Could we also make adjustments to her sim photo?

It depends on what adjustments you make. Changing Sophia's shirt color, tinting, warping or utilizing general photoshop tools is fine, however you cant like stick the face of a different Sim on Sophia and slap it on a banner. Sophia's face should remain the same as in the pictures (ie same make-up, eye color, etc).

Ok! I was thinking of that, but so long as her face stays the same, it's ok then.

One last question, I promise, LOL

Now I'm not sure if it's been asked, but does the logo have to be in the banner with Sophia? (Take the logo and paste it onto the current banner)

Is it ok to use animation?

Similar questions have been asked but I'm not sure if this is the same, do we have to have the "Sims 2" logo or can it just says "The Sims 2 Community" without the Sims 2 logo?

Sorry if it was asked before, different wordings confuse me!

Do you want the small banner bg white like it is now? And a blue colour theme? Or is the forum colours going to be edited around the banner or not?

BTW, guys, I have a set of solid-coloured walls in every colour of the rainbow, so I don't mind if you ask for a specific colour background. Just make it easy on me in terms of finding a hair and what pose you want, if you do need another pic taken.

what colour scheme is prefered? i was thinking about doing a green one similar to the colour of the "2" on the sims2 logo.

Use your imagination. Do something you think looks good.

so when are we allowed to post these ... 2 more days?

I'm seriously not trying to stir up any trouble - Hp's sim will make a lovely banner :anime - but since Enayla was ill and is now back, does she know her sim is no longer to be the banner model?

Could you explain this?

Charmy, you are welcome to use the current text, the Sims 2 emblem, or just create your own logo text. As long as it says "The Sims 2 Community" in some way.

ThePolygotNerd, I think we want to stay away from animation, to keep the filesize down and to keep things quickly loading.

joanne_8121/Cissia, regarding the colour scheme (and expanding on discord's statment above), I don't think we'll be changing the whole forum to match the banner, so it should be something that complements our colour scheme, but you are welcome to get creative with the use of colour.

joanne_8121, regarding posting, yes, please wait until the question period has completed before posting your banners. We want to make everything is clear for everyone participating, so there's no, "I already posted mine and I didn't know that!" type stuff.

schuldig, that's explained in the first post. Enayla was gone without communication for quite a while. She had only sent the sim to Lyric, so we don't have her sim. When the banner idea had come up she had expressed interest in helping design the banner, but then disappeared without any more word on the subject. It's only been very recently that she has been back - planning and preparation for this has been going on since before her return (including Sophia's photo shoot, which took several hours). She hasn't contacted us for her prizes, either, nor to notify us that she wasn't going to be around, so we've gone ahead with the runner-up. It is not intended as anything negative toward Enayla whatsoever - we all have the utmost respect for her (I was in the contest and rooting for her to win myself!), but we needed to get moving on this. We have been preparing for this and getting all the details worked out for some time now. If she would like to participate in this contest, or if she would like to get Cecelia to us in a way that she can be used on a later banner, she's welcome to do so. Part of the reason of getting a layer-separated version of the winning logo design is so we can switch out the sim later if we would like to - to put Cecelia in, or a winner of another official Miss/Mr. S2C contest in future.

Sizza, A PSD is a Photoshop document, its native file format, which will allow someone to save all the layers of their image with whatever effects, etc., so it can be pulled apart and changed. We would need a PSD or another common layer-separated format (whatever Paint Shop Pro uses, etc.,) so we can switch out the sim for another one if we choose to run another contest later, to make seasonal changes if we decide to do so, create other graphics using parts of their banner, etc.

I use a free program called Photobie which has its own format. Would it be acceptable to provide a Photobie format document and a link to the photobie download site?

sidney I think they don't mind as long as it's multi-layers like a .PSD file.

Can we submit on the 3 days of questioning? or do we have to wait after the 3 days..

That's fine, sidneydoj - as long as we have a layer-separated document that we can use.

footballer_17, please wait to submit until the 3 days of questions are over.

Oh, I see It was mentioned in the first post, but in a way that seemed to suggest that she hadn't returned, and not a lot of detail into the situation (perhaps because it's not really any of my business ) Again, I wasn't intending to critisize, imply that Enayla was being disrespected, or create trouble - I was genuinely wondering Thanks very much for replying.

I know that Enayla took a complete break from pretty much everything online because she was unwell, and didn't inform anyone because it was an unplanned and genuinely needed break. So I don't think she meant to abandon you ^^;
I watched the contest too, and everyone's entries were incredible, especially in the last round. It seemed a shame that after all the effort put forward, circumstances came about which meant that the banner still hasn't been made - it's definitely time something was done.

And obviously all the hard work and planning that has been going on for a while shouldn't be wasted It's a nice idea that the file format must be layered, too, for future use.

{edit} HP, I just had a look at Sophia's pictures on your site. I love her expressions! You didn a great job getting all those :D

Anyway, sorry for interrupting. Good luck everyone! I can't wait to see what people come up with

Heeeey, I'd like to try something. I love making banners

So when it's time to post the banners, we do it right here, right? Or is it in another thread? Also, have I understood it correct, that we should attach the actual .psd file?
Do you want it zipped or rared, or not at all? Also,is there a size limit to the file, or will you compress it yourself?

Hugs, digital_Hannah

It's okay, schuldig. I explained with a bunch of words as I realize, while we mentioned it, others might want a bit more explanation as well. I realize you didn't mean anything bad by it - and I didn't mean to imply that Enayla meant to "abandon" us or anything. Real life and one's health is WAAAY more important than pixel dollies, and we wish her all the best of health and happiness.

digital_hannah, it will be in this thread. We'll let you know when it's time to post the banners and the question period has ended. Post the images in the thread here, in JPEG format, using the (img) tags if you have your own webspace that you can upload to, or "Go Advanced" and then use the Manage Attachments button to upload directly. We only need the PSD from the winner, and we'll get that once the winner is announced.