00s vernacular graphic design: forum signatures, avatars and blinkies

power gem

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recently i've been feeling nostalgic for early 00s forum signatures and avatars. these were many people's first introduction to the world of graphic design, and i consider them a form of folk art. forum signatures were art created by and for ordinary people rather than for artists or corporations. i remember looking up tutorials, downloading GIMP brush packs, and searching for free PNG sites to try to recreate my favorite avs and siggies. this form of vernacular art has seemingly died out as modern social media sites have reduced their customization options & the predominant aesthetic of the internet has become bland flat design.

18168514153_0fa7cafdce_z.jpg
QbvzwEJ.jpg

d62t51g-20dde978-d074-46f6-bab0-24dfad2637d9.png
chrislucius1.jpg

forum_signature_compilation_by_jas0ncola-d5l2l3k.jpg

icon27.jpg
step_15.jpg
1.gif
18.gif
55.jpg


OK6W_koKDTOqqqLDbIoPAnO3qx7nDBIoPPotgvPmmIU.png

5LYzTBVoS196gvYvw3zjwFqOMgDVHoapqWWyinwsQa4.png

related forms of vernacular graphic design include "blinkies" and "adoptables".
mjKOMZX.gif

pixel.gif
feel free to share your favorite examples of this aesthetic here
 
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Sketch Relics

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I have 2 avatars I think

This fucking cat

old cat lick.gif


And this guy, though I don't think he was as widely used

1333053655861.gif
 
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manpaint

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I think those types of soignatures are still prevalent in places like Gbatemp - not that I would reccomend ever going there unless you need to solve a tech issue with a modded console.

But yeah we need to bring back that tradition on Agora.
 

power gem

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manpaint

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According to my calculations, this signature I created should have enough "soul" in it:

Agora_signature.png


Going to use it from now on.
 

h00

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1672012269427.png

frozen in amber
comments dating back 12+ years
 
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power gem

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I wanted to post an image that was always funny to me, a forum sig quote that is very obviously what you're looking for, but I can't find it, which is a tragedy.
Anyways, it was something involving Naruto, Jesus, and the bible, super hilarious. Would anyone happen to have what I'm talking about?
Also, for those who have tried browsing old forums in the past few years, I'm sure you'll be familiar with what is obviously the most common profile picture/signature/image in general:
5b926x.png

And while Blingee is no longer active, as far as I'm aware, you can still make that style of gif using this site
 

manpaint

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I wanted to post an image that was always funny to me, a forum sig quote that is very obviously what you're looking for, but I can't find it, which is a tragedy.
Anyways, it was something involving Naruto, Jesus, and the bible, super hilarious. Would anyone happen to have what I'm talking about?
Do you remember in ehich context you encounter? Did you encounter it in the wild or was in a thread specifically talking aboiut funny signatures? Any idea on which website you saw this image?
 

h00

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1672022505417.png

Anyways, it was something involving Naruto, Jesus, and the bible, super hilarious. Would anyone happen to have what I'm talking about?
 
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manpaint

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Deleted member 4436

Do you remember in ehich context you encounter? Did you encounter it in the wild or was in a thread specifically talking aboiut funny signatures? Any idea on which website you saw this image?
99% sure that it was someone which someone else showed to me, though I have encountered a few similar ones like it out in the wild.
 

wot

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1640027251139-0.png

The style I'm most fond of is whatever took advantage of the low screen DPIs that were common back then. You rarely had screens that went past 96 in those days, so there were a lot of graphics with hand-drawn bitmap fonts and even pixel art at times. I like to call it the "Mac OS 9 aesthetic" since that's what it reminds me of the most. Stuff like this picture is a great example. Or those userbars and 80x15 buttons like this (I used to love making these by hand in Paint but can't find the ones I made):
80x15.png


Nowadays with higher DPIs all this stuff may as well be microscopic. I bet it could make a comeback if browser devs were willing to cooperate, though. Right now you can tell browsers to render images nearest-neighbor (aka not blurred) when scaled up, but you'd still need a way to tell it to always integer-scale them. Otherwise they'll look all ugly and distorted.
 
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elia925-6

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View attachment 47802
The style I'm most fond of is whatever took advantage of the low screen DPIs that were common back then. You rarely had screens that went past 96 in those days, so there were a lot of graphics with hand-drawn bitmap fonts and even pixel art at times. I like to call it the "Mac OS 9 aesthetic" since that's what it reminds me of the most. Stuff like this picture is a great example. Or those userbars and 80x15 buttons like this (I used to love making these by hand in Paint but can't find the ones I made):
View attachment 47804

Nowadays with higher DPIs all this stuff may as well be microscopic. I bet it could make a comeback if browser devs were willing to cooperate, though. Right now you can tell browsers to render images nearest-neighbor (aka not blurred) when scaled up, but you'd still need a way to tell it to always integer-scale them. Otherwise they'll look all ugly and distorted.
Well, the aesthetic with 45 degree angle squares and pixelated fonts is called Metalheart and it's worth visiting the twitter account for more examples.
 
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SolidStateSurvivor

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I wanted to post an image that was always funny to me, a forum sig quote that is very obviously what you're looking for, but I can't find it, which is a tragedy.
Anyways, it was something involving Naruto, Jesus, and the bible, super hilarious. Would anyone happen to have what I'm talking about?
Also, for those who have tried browsing old forums in the past few years, I'm sure you'll be familiar with what is obviously the most common profile picture/signature/image in general:
5b926x.png

And while Blingee is no longer active, as far as I'm aware, you can still make that style of gif using this site
What's maddening is revisiting the old forums I used to be on, seeing this 404 image, yet still having a general idea of what the original was.

Right now you can tell browsers to render images nearest-neighbor (aka not blurred) when scaled up, but you'd still need a way to tell it to always integer-scale them. Otherwise they'll look all ugly and distorted.
My work around has been to set image-rendering: pixelated; for my webpage CSS, doesn't seem to give me any noticable distortion
 
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Sketch Relics

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I wanted to post an image that was always funny to me, a forum sig quote that is very obviously what you're looking for, but I can't find it, which is a tragedy.
Anyways, it was something involving Naruto, Jesus, and the bible, super hilarious. Would anyone happen to have what I'm talking about?
Also, for those who have tried browsing old forums in the past few years, I'm sure you'll be familiar with what is obviously the most common profile picture/signature/image in general:
5b926x.png

And while Blingee is no longer active, as far as I'm aware, you can still make that style of gif using this site
1673143168390663.png

Was it this one by any chance?, no jesus but this one gets passed around alot.
 
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