Friendship! Effort! Victory! is back for another episode later today, and as such it seems a good time to reveal the new batch of test banners for the revamped website coming up for the start of series two. Series used this time were Masanori Morita’s Beshari Gurashi (the students at the mic), Soji Yamakawa & Noboru Kawasaki’s Wilderness Boy Isamu (The Cowboy), and Tatsuya Egawa’s Magical Taruruuto-kun (the little fairy kid).

The idea this time round was to remove the troublesome borders of the last test set, but retain the idea of using the title characters of each series as the banner for the week that title’s spotlighted on the show. To make that a bit clearer I also opted to include the title for that series in the design

Another crucial element was to have a less troubled font (I opted this time out for Toon Town Industrial), and to fit the Jump Pirate into the mix. This totalled up to three distinct elements to play with on the banner and to try and fit together in a clean, consistent fashion.

As such, here are my three size/layout takes on the banner:

1. The first three banners here are the widescreen take, being the same size as the current banner on the website. These… Didn’t really work too well, save perhaps the Beshari Gurashi one, but even that has an awkward amount of dead space on the top left. I’m not averse to such things, but it seems less intentionally empty and more like I just couldn’t fill the space. If there’s anything in the favour of these ones, it’s that the Jump Pirate doesn’t feel as overbearing as in the following attempts
2. I only did one of these with Taruruuto-kun as an attempt at a mid-point between the extremes, and to see if moving the series title to the top left would solve the dead space issue. Ultimately I feel like this paid off, with the empty area in the middle being a good focal point to take in the whole banner. I don’t know if it could work with all titles, and I still need to reduce the Jump Pirate a little, and perhaps to make the title logo a bit more readable.
3. The tiny ones feel a bit more like forum signatures, and suffer for it. That said, the Wilderness Boy Isamu one fits together extraordinarily well to me, even if it feels like its missing that little spark to make it more than just… a black and white image.

That’s a problem, actually. I’m making these all black and white and with basic elements, to preserve both my sanity and the art assets involved, but… It doesn’t really pop like that, does it. Would something like colour background/lineart or a bit of a pop-art motif work out better?

As always I’m just shooting off ideas, so feel free to give me any feedback, whatever it may be either here on tumblr (I have an askbox) or on twitter

Finally, a Weekly Shonen Jump cover gallery, featuring a variety of appearances for Ryu Fujisaki’s Hoshin Engi, the subject of yesterday’s Friendship! Effort! Victory!

My favourite? The one with Taikobo and Otenkun side by side.

But yeah, that’s it for Hoshin Engi stuff (I think?). Expect WaqWaq material once that episode is up.

Hoshin Engi Kanzenban Covers pt.2

Continued from the last post, here’s the other half of these gorgeous beauties, taken from the kanzenban volumes of Hoshin Engi, subject of yesterday’s Friendship! Effort! Victory!

Hoshin Engi Kanzenban Covers pt. 1

Kanzenban editions of manga are fancy, oversized volumes that recollect a series in high quality with colour pages intact and fancy new covers. This is for Hoshin Engi, the subject of yesterday’s Friendship! Effort! Victory!, and two thoughts come to mind.

1. They’re interconnected!
2. They’re absolutely flippin’ gorgeous

Playing with more banner lay-outs for Friendship! Effort! Victory!, after going cold on the initial concept. Current idea is to have a single, black and white image, featuring a key character from any given Weekly Shonen Jump title, and to use dead space and small text to keep it from getting too busy. In the first version I included the jump pirate in the corner because why not. 

I’m a fair bit fonder of this type of banner (you can see how I’ve previously used this bit of design in the banner to this very tumblr), but it also feels a bit… “my first forum signature”. Must consult with others on how to improve upon this initial step.