StoryNexus Art and Layout

StoryNexus
41

Patience is a virtue after all…

Anyways back to the topic at hand, I would please like:
A Magnifying Glass (The one included, like a lot of the icons, seems to be a dead link)
A Pillow
A Couch
A Digital Alarm Clock
Lips as well
A generic heart [<3]
A Turntable/CDJ
Sunglasses
Skis/Snowboard
Ferris Wheel/Roller Coaster
Slot Machine
Water
Wind
Four-Leaf Clover
Rabbits’ Foot
Shaking Hands
Painters’ Pallet

Thank you for the art you already provided too!

42

[color=00ffff]Hi gang. A bunch more placeholders added today (see below for the list) Hopefully I’ll soon be able to actually draw some of these. We’ve had some questions on layout and customisation above, so I want to give an idea of our plans and take some suggestions. [/color]
[color=00ffff]the next stage in SN design is themes: that is to say, a series of pre-designed templates that you can apply to your world. These will consist of a background images, textures or html boxes for text, customised card backs, fonts button styles and so on. The broad layout itself won’t change. I envisage this working in a similar style to blogging sites, where you can choose a named theme and see a preview of it as applied to your world. The base Storynexus icon library is designed to work around a wide range of these themes, hence the transparent areas and simple, generic silhouettes. As always, the design direction is towards symbolism and broad metaphor rather than specificity. Later on, once we open the platform up to user uploads, I’d very much like to see the community designing their own themes and uploading them for general use. At the moment, I’m working up a parchment theme that looks a little like Cabinet Noir/Fallen London and should work well for historical worlds, a futuristic theme for our sci fi builders and a noirish city theme. As ever, I’m open to ideas. [/color]

[color=00ffff]
[/color]
[color=00ffff]The latest placeholders are:[/color]

[color=00ffff]paintbrush[/color]
[color=00ffff]pie[/color]
[color=00ffff]booth[/color]
[color=00ffff]letter[/color]
[color=00ffff]quill[/color]
[color=00ffff]mushroom[/color]
[color=00ffff]spyglass[/color]
[color=00ffff]scroll[/color]
[color=00ffff]magnifyingglass[/color]
[color=00ffff]teeth[/color]
[color=00ffff]toy[/color]
[color=00ffff]snowflake[/color]
[color=00ffff]raygun[/color]
[color=00ffff]spaceship[/color]
[color=00ffff]crackedglass[/color]
[color=00ffff]running[/color]
[color=00ffff]ghost[/color]
[color=00ffff]sand[/color]
[color=00ffff]road[/color]
[color=00ffff]arrow[/color]
[color=00ffff]laughter[/color]
[color=00ffff]gossip[/color]
[color=00ffff]flowers[/color]

43

Paul: sounds great! Thanks for keeping us in the loop!

Just a quick follow-up: any idea about why the dragon icon shows a broken link during the increase/decrease part of branch results?

44

[color=00ffff]Oh, and another thing. several people have asked about icons for people, which we’re a bit lacking at the moment. The trouble with faces, of course is that they are very specific, which is an issue we still run into in Fallen London. I think the simplest short term solution to this issue is to create a good number of icons that are similar to the Fallen London avatars, ie silhouettes with recognisable profiles. [/color]

45

[color=00ffff]Gordon: I can’t see why it would from here. Could you pop a bug report over to support@storynexus.com if you haven’t already, and someone will have a look.[/color]

46

Will do — thanks!

47

I have some suggestions for more modern and sci-fi oriented icons –

Classical ‘atom’
Ringed Planet
Computer/Terminal
Radioactive Symbol
Biohazard Symbol
Orbital Chart
Geometric Solids (cube, sphere, cone)
Mathematical charts like sine curve or asymptote
Corridor (sqauare, circular, hexagonal)
Space station

Thank you!
Sputnik/sattelite

48

Very excited about the new placeholders! (And the fact that they’re now placeholders rather than broken links!) Thank you SO much! The icon library is starting to look splendid.

My general theme suggestion would be something in keeping with fairy tales; the historic parchment one would probably be great for some fantasy but at least the current CN/FL themes have a sort of darkish tinge to them that seems like it might be atmospherically inappropriate to lighter or younger works.

ETA: Oh, and on faces, I’d be delighted with something like the Fallen London avatar cameos. I mean, I might eventually change them to something more customized, but the avatar cameos are quite evocative.
edited by Chrysoula on 8/31/2012

49

I’m working on a steampunk oriented game. Would it be possible to get a theme with brass and wood grain style?

50

Would icons of a fedora, typewriter, newspaper, and pocketwatch be possible?

51

The placeholder images are brilliant! Thank you so much for including them, it makes designing and checking bugs a lot easier.

52

Ooooohhhhh themes! You tease, Arendt >_> Anyways some open ended themes:

Space Western
Dark Fantasy
Modern City
Cyberpunk (deserves to be differentiated from futuristic/sci-fi, I feel)
Holidays (major ones, anyways)

Placeholders are certainly a step in the right direction, I hate leaving things unfinished and you can’t really get more unfinished than broken links when it comes to web-based stuff… :) Hey it even fixed some of the other links too!

Oh and one icon I forgot to ask for: a calendar please.

edited by Kitsune on 9/1/2012
edited by Kitsune on 9/1/2012

53

I almost feel guilty asking but I can see value in (and personally could use):

  • a door (the more portentious the better)
  • a tunnel (possibly like a train tunnel but any sort of tunnel would do, especially if I can squint and imagine its a sewer tunnel)
  • a train (steam for preference, as I think it’s got symbolic use as well as literal use in steam-age stories)
  • and second requests for typewriter and newspaper (and fedora but I reckon that’s quite a specific image)
    edited by Ambrose Smith on 9/1/2012
54

Oh, one more that I thought of…could we get a card that’s just black? Darkness. That would be extremely helpful. Thanks again!

55

Landscape stuff in general would be good too. A sea, a river, a patch of grass, a pile of earth, a stone, a dusty road…

56

My wishlist:

Footprints
Wall
Net
Rabbit

Loving the responsiveness, by the way.

57

If possible, I’d love:

a bird.

Any kind, really. :) Hawk, sparrow, I can even work with a chicken.

L&c,
F

58

I would really like a phoenix, please.

59

It’s just occurred to me what would add a lot of reusuability and fuctionality to images: the ability to colour existing icons. By that I just mean the ability to “bleach” each icon with a single tone. Or you could have prebleached icons with a numbering system, so “cobbles” becomes “cobbles1” for red and “cobbles2” for orange etc.

This would allow you to:

  1. Add atmosphere to your game/area.
  2. Differentiate between different qualities/things that are represented by the same icon. For example, I currently have money and wooden tokens in my game, both currently using the “coins” icon. If I could bleach one gold and the other brown they’d be a doddle to tell apart.
  3. Distinguish between different things in-story. For example, you could have an ongoing plot about a rivalry between two lurky fellows, using the “follow” icon for both but giving them different colour tones.

I’m no techie, but I’m guessing that you could add a lot of diversity to image here with a fairly simple process. Plus it gets more valuable for each new icon you make.

Fully aware that this may be unfeasible or undesireable, but I thought I’d mention it just in case.
edited by SmyJohn on 9/5/2012

60

Hello, I’m completely new to this community and do not have access to the image library, but I was wondering if runes (nordic variety) had been implemented? They’re very basic symbols, but can be used to express multiple meanings. The same with alchemy/astrological symbols (I believe someone mentioned that in an earlier post) and possibly tarot cards. These are popular icons that I think many people can relate to and have a personal meaning for each. It should be easy to mix and match representation with simple symbols like these.