Warning: 1. No flaming or cursing 2. No ripping or spamming up the topic 3. If you do any of these things you will be reported to an mod/admin. P.S. Keep it clean and fun and let's have a educational discussion about the topic without being rude about it. I know I have heard people say signatures take true art and skill to make and it has been a huge discussion on other boards whether or not your considered an artist for making signatures. Well before I give off my feelings on the subject let me give you some background info on me so you understand my point of view. I am 21 years old and I know I am one of the older people in this commiunity. Back when I was 17/18 I got into e fedding (I regret this now). I was hooked on the whole concept and I saw how people were making custom sigantures on the board. I was asking people how they made them and they told me "Photoshop" and after that day I was hooked. I went and purchased it and to my suprising I found my carreer but I just didn't know it yet. After e fedding for around 2 years (this included running my own e fed site along with it being #1 on chris hart's for two weeks) I decided to give it up because it drained too much of my social life and I was hating it. Then when I turned 20 I found GR but didn't register until later. I would make sigs like there hotcakes and thought I was this bad*** person who knew everything there was to photoshop. Boy was I wrong. Making signatures is nothing compared to acutally knowing anything with the graphic design field at all and this where my arguement begins. Making signatures on your spare time = hobby. Doing online research about the graphic design field and studying what photoshop has to offer and differences between jpg,png,gif etc etc and making art work on large piecies = getting started on being a artist. Why signatures should not be considered "art" in my view: Your working with such a small canvas that doesn't take up much to fill up. You choose a image/render of a person or place or thing and your given your subject already. All you have to do is make a bg with some effects that flow good with your image and add some lighting. It sounds easy and it is once you know what photoshop can really do. You won't find signatures hanging in a art gallery or anything like that. Why? Because it's so small nobody is going to care and really your just ripping other people's work by taking a image from a game that doesn't belong to you. When you make a large peicie its a huge canvas that you must fill up along with NO IMAGE to start you off with. You must design the whole thing yourself and come up with orgional ideas on your own. Imagine this: Somebody opens up photoshop with a large scale and they draw an image for you in the center of the canvas and then get up and say "okay now you do the rest". That's what your basically doing with signatures. It takes lack of creativty and nobody in the graphic design field is going to "pay" you to make signatures. Is making signatures on your spare time wrong? No. But I have a problem with people who claim there artists and when they post there gallery (if you want to consider it one) it's nothing but signatures. It's ridcilious. Your not an artist. Those are basically my two cents. But if your considering on being a graphic designer I suggest you give up signature making, pick up some books and do some online research because there so much to know and I'm going to graphic design school soon and on my interview they were so impressed with how much I knew and was ahead of a lot of people.
I would consider it art because you're still putting your creative sense into it (unless you are following a tutorial from start to finish) but then again, some people find it hard to confine their creativity on such a small canvas and those people move on to making Large Pieces, Vector art etc. off topic: what books do you recommend reading on gfx design, I've been searching for one but I can't find any good ones
you're generalizing about sigs. there are people who make everything in their sig from scratch, either as a digital painting or using c4d or something to create the centerpiece that they then put into the sig (go look at some of the stuff on sigoftheweek.com). how is this different from making a 100% original large piece, other than the size? the size makes it easier, but it still takes creativity and effort, and involves understanding concepts of art like focal points and flow. large pieces are considered more 'arty' because for a layperson, they are easier to appreciate. have you ever tried to make someone with no understanding of gfx appreciate a sig? its hard. much easier to make them appreciate an LP. i do agree that making something 100% original is a purer form of art than something with a render made by someone else as a starting point. your creativity is challenged more that way. but saying sigs < LPs is generalizing. there are great original sigs, there are terrible LPs. furthermore, its art. beauty is in the eye of the beholder. its silly to even define it.
I understand your point but I'm talking about the people who just make general sigs and there sigs get sold for insane prices and claim to be artists. Those are the people who I am pointing out.
those people are weird but sigs are art anything can be art.I can take a picture of a wall and thats art.
heh, imma goin to spit in a wad of toilet paper and sell it... anything can be art. but anyone who puts earning creds/money ahead of the fun if being creative, needs to reasses their priorities.
agreed with topic starter to a certain extent. sigs are just BASIC techniques you acquire before you move on to other fields. For example, lighting is very important in digital painting. Depth, very important in photography. Text/Typography is important in web design and advertisements. Therefore, sigs are just a way to experiment with photoshop, as well as getting those basic techniques right. And as sacrafice said, they're smaller but unfortunately, its still art. Those who claim to be artists as topic starter said are wimps though.
it's really simple...signatures are art, but you cannot claim them to be your art work (unless you made all the images included)
you contridicited yourself except for the whole unless you made all the images yourself but thats the problem on GR 99 percent of people that makes sigs don't make everything themselves
You know, I never really thought about that before It brings up a really good point. I agree with what THFM says, but I do have to say that sigs are STILL art (unless they are followed by a tutorial, like .BC. said). Sigs are just a way to develop your skills as an artist, in my opinion, so you can get better for the real world that's out there. I know that there is SO much more to Graphic Design than any of us know right now, but FOR now, sig makin is what we have to build up on.
It depends. Taking somebody's drawing (like you said) and making a two step background and some text isn't art. But sigs do have creativity, meaning. Some of them, the experienced. At least when I make a sig I put a message into it. And my own c4ds and resources I make, made specifically for such a sig etc. Before I make a sig I get an idea for it. I don't go nuts on a small canvas, I have an idea of what I want, and when you have inspiration it's more than just a tag in your eyes. But for the most part, I don't call signatures art. Most people would laugh at you if you posted sigs on dA. I consider sigs as a step closer to designing. If you can make a really sweet sig, you can use those techniques and your knowledge to make a really sweet designing career. It's a lot different, and you need more patience and definitely an idea before making something.. but they overlap in some areas.
