I'm not sure whether this is an issue, but I think Matt Visser's submission is a reprint of a Michigan Daily photo. I'm not sure of the significance of that legally, but just a heads up.
Hey, how come Jeremy's "tacopants" isn't up for voting? or am I mistaken...
You should seriously consider having a second vote on the top choices, since the winner will (most likely) be far from a majority.
If the only version submitted by Jeremy Bronson was the Tacopants version, I would have voted for that. The Tacopants version by far is the best.
Since that's not the one we're voting for, I go with Andrew Wooley's instead. But please, please, have the Tacopants banner somewhere on the site. Plus, not to get all technical, but isn't Tacopants 11 feet tall? I'm pretty sure he'd be ducking based on how low he is compared to the banner.
Neither of Jeremy's entries are in the poll - I would vote for either, but the tacopants one is far and away the winner.
cut & paste erics comment here....WOW.
I like both of Jeremy's as well, but I also like the beauty and color in the "Stadium Skies" one. Hmmmm.....
Shoot, "Past and Present" is amazing as well. It's really a shame someone is going to lose this contest.
Did I miss the cut, or does ajax hate me?
I really want to vote for both of Jeremys, but apparently you hate him and his designs?
Tacopants should be the winner by a country mile. As that's not an option, I'm forced to go with the Fred Simmons entry (which is really excellent, lacking only Tacopants).
Past & Present: I had to zoom in to see Harmon and Desmond (Who is the old school QB?)...very very nice...got my vote.
One more legal issue to be aware of, The Block "M" that was used in a few of the submissions is one of the registered marks of the University.
I thought about using it a while back for the Maize n Brew banner but Michigan's got a whole friggin website devoted to protecting the "M". That was enough to dissuade me.
Oddly, use of photos or other media doesn't seem to be as big a deal, but they take "M" usage pretty seriously. They do have an exception for News and Media, but it's just something to be aware of.
Tacopants is awesome, but my favorite was the "History" offering.
I don't think the banner should be just all football....I like the banners with hockey, football, and basketball because all three are talked about here a lot. Just my opinion
Crap! Okay: re-created the poll with Jeremy's submission on it. Everyone will have to vote again; lo siento.
Re: Tacopants edition. I do like it but it's a little too inside baseball for someone new to the site.
Past and Present followed closely by alternating stadium skies. Echo Eric's comment regarding a second vote.
I know I risk sounding stupid, but who is tacopants?
Never mind, I just googled it. Can we get tacopants on the past and present? Perhaps three alternating stadium skies, one with tacopants peering at the skies above the pressbox?
Wow, there's some REALLY good ones here. I haven't voted yet; it's going to be a tough decision.
Can we just alternate between the top 4 or so? There are a bunch of awesome ones.
I kinda was thinking about both Dave and derek's comments in my head when I submitted one.
Nevertheless -- humbled and honored to have one nominated. Go Moose! :)
Hooray, all is fixed hooray.
The U is indeed protective of their M, but if you have a valid uniqname/password you can log in to that toolkit that MnBDave linked and download the original vector files. I take that as complacency with their licensing agreement though, so be careful how it's used.
Agree with other sentiments that there are some great submissions here. Went with Baxter Allen's past and present, b/c I love the tradition of Michigan.
"past and present" definitely is in keeping with the theme of your current banner and also a great way to recall our brilliant heritage.
"skies" is just... damn, that's nice...
"huddle" is also awesome. i just love seeing all those winged helmets.
m@, loved the triumphant return of Graham Brown! dang, i missed that guy this past season...
Holy Cats, our new wball coach has BOBBLEHEADS:
http://www.uwgb.edu/univcomm/new.../
06wbbgame1.jpg
My 2 cents:
Josh Houchin's and Fred Simmons's entries feel the most professional and the least... hack-y.
Uh, no offense to the other entrants. And much love to t-pants.
I take it the name "We Need a Collage" is meant to be sung to the "We Need a Montage" theme from Team America? If this one had the head shot of Air Georgia with the winged-helmet haircut as one of the corner shots and JMFJ in another, I'd call it my favorite - but I'm not allowed to mix and match, am I?
(this is just like the student t-shirt contest)
Great work, everyone. I agree that rotating banners are a good idea.
I'm a little torn on the idea of rotating banners. On one hand, rotating occasionally -- maybe monthly -- could be cool. But rotating too frequently would be a bit much. Having a consistent banner makes for a good site identity.
Of course, that doesn't apply to the idea of having a tacopants banner appear every now and again. That would just be hilarious.
Wow this is SOOOO hard to pick only 2 or 3 from these great selections, much less to whittle it down to 1...
Pretending to be forced by gunpoint, I picked the two that I liked best...
I decided that I LOVE the "past and present" (baxter allen), and the "stadium skies" (max kimbrough) most... Then it occured to me that Hart, Henne and Mario are going to become part of our history within the next 365 days... So with a less finite lifetime, the beauty of the skies submission won out for me...
I also really like the simplicity of "Hart leaps"... The banner by Bronson (I actually prefer sans Tacopants)... Andrew Wooleys and several others...
Great job by all the artists...
PS - Max - Is there a copy of the stadium photo you used for the more colorful of the two skies up on the web somewhere? It would make a great desktop...
Wolverbean: wasn't the "You need a montage" not from Team America, but rather from the South Park episode that mixed pet semetary, with better off dead? Great episode, and great song... was it used in the movie too?
And yeah, Tacopants doesn't need to jump to touch the banner... he only needs to jump to hurdle it...
Keep the current one.
I wish I'd thought about this back when the topic came up -- my photoshop skills are less than awesome, but I would have volunteered one of my photos if anyone wanted to use it.
http://photo.burrillstrong.com/
g...use03sept05.jpg
Of all of the entries, I think the "hart leaps" presents the best overall graphic presentation. It just looks good.
The idea of incorporating football, basketball and hockey into one banner is nice in theory, but it's got to require a subtle touch to make an identifiable and readable banner that's not too cluttered. That's the biggest issue I have with the 'history' entry; it seems very cluttered to me.
Some other minor quibbles: I think a lot of entries are very promising, save for a few annoyances, mainly dealing with font selection and text effects. The fonts in the first two and the 4th one just don't work for me, and the text glow on the 'history' one really irks me for some reason I can't fathom.
My first pick would be 'Hart Leaps,' followed by the stadium skies as a close second.
If you decide to rotate them, perhaps you could ask the submitters to reconfigure their logos with no text, and configure the site something like this, where a new and random image takes the banner spot for every time you refresh the page:
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/snackeru/greet/
I vote for a runoff vote.
The sunset stadium sky banner is fantastic - I wouldn't even bother to rotate 'em.
Several comments . . .
1) I love your website, and the banner doesn't really matter to me. The current one is fine, but a new one would be fine too. I'm here for the content. Love the ease of navigation. Have to question the bizarre sexuality inclusive auto ads . . . doesn't fit the site.
2) Too many banners are too busy. I love the skies . . . got my vote. Could live with mgobanner#2. Hate past & present . . . way too cluttered, too busy. Could live with huddle.
3) Think you should insist on a minimum vote of 50% So take the top three or four, vote again, and repeat the process until you have a simple majority by eliminating the lowest vote getter each time.
4) Since you seem to be a math & stat whiz, you could also consider incorporating an "ABB" factor (any banner but . . . )
5) Could live with some banner rotation.
Tacopants, hands down. No contest. And it's not just because of the inside joke... the 'sans tacopants' version makes for a nice banner by itself.
I agree with Steve that "Past & Present" is far too cluttered / disorienting, not to mention an incremental change from the status quo.
Jeremy's Tacopants one should be like the announcer saying, "You're Welcome."
As for the others, damned impressive dudes. I think I'm going to have to go with the skies, simply because I love the night sky in particular. Reminds me of the MSU '04 game and, in general, the imagery for me invokes the constancy of the program in the lives of fans. That said, I do love Mario superimposed over a black and white Desmond.
Okay, so, Brian, I echo the need for banner rotation. If you took, say, 4, you could go 3 months at a time without changing (though you'd have to do the occasional Tacopants, so make it 5).
Just thought I'd fill y'all in on the person in middle of my submission. That's a picture of Benny Friedman, one of the first great Quarterbacks to play for UoM. He went on to the NFL and is a Hall of Famer in both college and the NFL. He was the first great passer in professional football, and a real pioneer in the sport.
Tacopants is funny but I don't feel like explaining it to the Appalachies etc.
I just looked up tacopants on wikipedia and there was no entry. Anyone want to make one?
I think these are all great art pieces in their own right and great to look that.
That being said, we must "know the audience" and the setting for this is a blog banner. Brian's projecting an image - it should be something that is recognizable, distinctive and not too busy. He's had no problem putting up a football-only banner before, so there's no compelling reason there HAVE to be other sports on it.
Here's a thought - some might be well-suited to be on-page tags or visual accesories rather than banners.
I think the M Club goblog banners are nice, but derivative. Tacopants is hilarious - he has a very short torso relative to his legs. Maybe that's what the Tacopants refers to. Rushing the field is exciting but I thikn lacks an oomph.
Matt "Yaar" Schaar got a shot of a guy named Cook in the banner. We Need A Collage looks like a great postcard.
Brian, is it possible to alternate the Kimbrough shots automatically based on time of day? That'd be awesome to log on late at night and see the evening shot, then load it at work and see the day.
Again, great work everyone, kudos.
It's clear to me that the Fred Simmons submission is by far the best. It has a high resolution, looks professional, and has Mighty Mouse #20 leaping for extra yards. How bad ass is that?
I also would like to echo previous comments that suggest there should be a further vote of the top banners. I'm a little upset right now that I didn't vote for Max's, as he is currently losing to Baxter's banner which is abysmally similar to Brian's current proto-photoshop banner attempt (Sorry Brian).
If there's a runoff round, we could allow a few hours for tweaking. Suggestions:
Baxter should blend the background images a little better (gradients are your friend) and make the text higher contrast.
Fred Simmons should eliminate the M so to avoid a cease and desist from the U -- but I think a helmet side-view watermark would look equally sweet. Also perhaps a varsity block lettering instead of the sans serif.
And Tacopants should have a target on his jersey instead of an arbitrary number.
I like Baxter's past/present one, and I think I'll vote for it. But if it wins, that just creates the need for a yearly contest (which would be a good way to pass time during the off-seasons) since Henne/Hart/Manningham(?) will be gone after this year, and it might look a bit dated. But if they win the NC, maybe you could keep it up forever?
Holding a new banner vote every April - if you can do it, I say go for it.
There seems to be much agreement on this point, but I'll still argue again for a runoff vote. The top three are very close, and 34% of the votes went to others. Even if the final vote does not change, it will almost certainly be much clearer.
My photoshop skills are worse than lacking. I wish this pic could have been used :
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums...olidkane/
07.jpg
Similar to "Huddle", but better in my opinion. My fave pic of UM football.
Detnews says Harris is staying
I have an entry, and even I know that Tacopants wins it hands down. In either form, that is some good work.
Just here to say that I'm well impressed by the work of my fellow fans. I also second the earlier comments that there should be a second or third round of voting.
I like the idea of alternating skies according to the time of day. Very Nice.
While I commend Michigan Nation on its creativity and inclusion of minorities (except for Jeremey who decided to make Tacopants an overrepresented caucasion-american and Matt Schaar who chose only pictures of overrepresented caucasian-american males), I am disappointed by the lack of entries containing smiling asian-americans in lab coats pouring things and womyn's basketball.
This is message we always attempt to portray in our promotional videos and our unofficial blogs should maintain our high tokenism we attempt to portray here at The University of Michigan's Ann Arbor campus.
/Mary Sue Coleman
hey... i just though of this...no space, bitches, space! take-off?
No, Dan, since that was coined by the gentlemen of EDSBS.
If it helps sway anyone, the photo in the night sky one is from the end of the PSU game from two years ago, when Manningham caught the last-second TD. Seems UM got two gifts there in an otherwise oh-so-painful season.
97Alumni: I've got the pic at home that I can post later tonight.
For my money (even though I was a shameless homer and voted for myself), I like Gene Keselman's a lot. Very professional looking.
But I wouldn't be against a runoff :)
Whoever suggested that there be different pictures that randomly load behind the same text which would presumably just say "mgoblog" ... you sir/madam, have a great idea.
I think there's a ton of college football blogs out there that have past and present collages at their banner. None have different images from across the school's sports and campus. I like that idea.
And to address the counterargument about "site identity" and "brand building" please: It's called MGoBlog. How much more "identity" does it need?
Wow - almost 1,000 votes. I ended up voting for the changing skies one, but really I could have voted for four or five different options. I like the "rotating banners" idea.
still, isn't SBS! in the public domain?
Maxr - Awesome! Thanks!
As promised, here's the nighttime pic: http://static.flickr.com/74/
1762...a1ef063c8_o.jpg
It's only 1024x309, so it's not perfect for making into a wallpaper, unless you put some crazy-big letterbox bars at the top and bottom.
Shouldn't TacoPants wear #11 since he's 11-feet tall (kind of like Eddie Gaedel wearing 1/2 on his uniform)? Or maybe #888, since he spawned from Jason Avant?
Maxr - thanks! Even with letterbox bars, awesome pic.
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