Dear readers, if you frequent the other fine blogs here at ScienceBlogs, you will have noticed that a number of them have neat-looking banners. For example, look at Afarensis, or Evolgen, or Gene Expression, or Uncertain Principles, or Cognitive Daily. Check out the rotating cast of critters in the banner at Pharyngula, or the base ticker at Daily Transcript.
And, look at the banner that won the Make-Ed-a-Banner contest at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.
Now look at my banner. Really boring, isn’t it? Maybe you can save me.
Stealing a page from Ed, I’m announcing a contest to come up with a better banner for “Adventures in Ethics and Science”. I know some of you are graphic wizards; use those talents to rescue my banner from Dullsville.
Here are the salient details:
- Ideally, the banner should be 760 pixels wide by 80 pixels high (though I can resize things if needed).
- It should contain the title of the blog (Adventures in Ethics and Science) in a font that is legible and pleasing to the eye. (If you submit something in Comic Sans, I will hunt you down.)
- Similarly, the color scheme should be aesthetically pleasing rather than painful.
- Please don’t use any images that will end up embroiling me in intellectual property disputes.
- Beyond that, let your creativity run wild.
Email your entries to me. If I choose your banner for the blog, I’ll give you a permanent “banner by” credit on my “about” page, and let you assign me a topic to blog for you.
Who could resist a deal like that?
Thanks in advance for your help!
Just out of curiosity, any idea what the copyright status is of images generated from .pdb files?
How can you have a title that starts with “adventures in” and then threaten people who are tempted to use a comic font? Just for that, I’m going to ONLY use comic fonts! :-p
I’m assuming the .pdb files you’re asking about are Microsoft Program Database? (I had never heard of them, but Wikipedia says:
I’m not sure it follows from the fact that the file format is proprietary that what is generated from it must also be, but perhaps someone with actual IP knowledge (Super Sally? Unlearned Hand?) could chime in on this.
protein data bank
Actually I was thinking of files like these. The .pdb file is a model of a molecule. The question is who owns the copyright on images derived from this model.
okay, so you don’t like hot pink and you don’t like comic sans font! that means there’s only birds left!
and now that you’ve announced this, my readers are asking me when i am going to have a contest like this, too, which made me poke around here, since i was wondering what goodies you will give to your winner.
so now i know. how long is this contest? what will you do if you get two banners that you like? will you have rotating banners?
I think this is what you are looking for. Just let me know if you need me to touch it up a little for you.
PDB images are in the public domain, but it’s good to cite them:
http://www.rcsb.org/robohelp_f/#site_navigation/citing_the_pdb.htm
“The contents of PDB are in the public domain. Online and printed resources are welcome to include PDB data and images from the Structure Summary pages, as long as they are not for sale as commercial items themselves, and their corresponding citations are included.”
Since I seem to be in the free-banners-for-science business lately, what kind of general look and feel are you going for? I had a pretty good sense for Ed and Tara’s sites, they were pretty focused in terms of concept and tone. But this is a more free-ranging kind of blog, at least from the outside looking in. Do you want something whimsical and fun? Serious and scholarly? Focusing more on the Adventures, the Ethics, or the Science?
Take the photo of Janet, put it on a stick figure sitting in the 1st car of a roller coaster just past the top of the 1st (steepest incline) with the caption balloon more like “Aaaadddveeeeentuuuuures in Ethics and Science” and a doodle-bug-like figure (or maybe good germ) under the structure saying something like “It’s really fun!”. This is good for the coming season, but might have to change to ski slope or luge for winter sports season. [You’d nees some tag to give the actual title for search engines.]
My preference is for no moving parts in the banner, since I tend to get seasick looking at the moving stuff and am so distracted I have trouble reading the actual blog. E.G. I keep the window narrow enough to exclude the moving ads.
On color, please remember that those who are color blind or with other vision limitations need good contrast, and a clear font. Not yellow on white. But I have used Comic to good effect in some presentations.
Glad someone else had the “right IP stuff” to answer your question. Giving credit when using others images is always to be desired, even if material is public domain.
Or there is always the adventure of mushroom hunting in the woods with Sprogs…
Here’s my attempt. Sort of Indiana Jones meets Maureen Dowd.
http://www.heromachine.com/adventures
Jeff