Thumbnails, cover banners, avatars

[RenO_D]

I hope to start a discussion about this because I have a few questions.

How important are thumbnails, cover banners and avatars according to you?
Did you spend a lot of time and thought to designe these for your serie? Do you try to get them ever more attractive or once it was good enough you didn't edit them?

Also as readers now, are these things a big part of what draws you to read a serie and why you enjoyed it?

[keii4ii]

Episode thumbnails aren't too important for me as long as the episode titles provide some way of identifying the content. The series icon/avatar/thumbnail though, that's CRITICAL. Comics without eyecatching icons get overlooked allllll the time.

Cover banner, I don't really pay too much attention to. By the time I see the cover banner, I have already decided to check out that comic. If it looks good, that's always a plus, but it won't make it any more or less likely for me to subscribe. At that point, the comic itself has to win me over.

[Kamikaze]

The banners, thumbnails and covers that are used in my teams comic are all about branding, and keeping our image consistent with what we want people to 'instantly read' about our comic. Readers new and old have had a positive reaction to them, plus, they really help you look more professional you know? If you've got a good look in branding, people are more likely to read your comic/be interested rather than if you had...well literally NOTHING there.

We spent a fair amount of time coming up with a logo, and what our branding image would be. While the image is important it's your logos, and characters that people are going to remember. Keep things consistent, change up your imagery if you feel the need (like maybe a big change has happened to the main character and you want to reflect that), but keep your BRANDING the same.

An example of what I mean: Cokeacola has great branding in logo, product shape, tagline and color theme. But their images for ads and their online presence is always changing up. The bottle, logo, message, and color is the same across the board, and even if it's in another language people KNOW Coke. Good branding has that same deal.

As far as reading? If there's no cover, no icon, and no header, I tend to think that the page isn't actually set up? Like they've just started and they're not posting content. So...Idk, maybe it's silly, but images are incredibly important to me. They draw me into whether the mood or idea is something I'd even like.

[Thesleepypencil]

In my personal opinion i find that the order of importance is avatar, cover banners, thumbnails.
.

Avatars are like the book cover of the webcomic. I could scroll through the comic pages looking for something to read and unless they have a really interesting title the avatar is the key factor that i'm drawn to. It should tell me a little about what kind of story i'll be reading and show me what art style i can expect. as shown above I have had three different icons since i started making me comic and i keep changing because of the change in art and how appealing the actual icon looks. IE the first one just didn't appeal to me. This Icon is pretty much my comics brand.

The Banner is less important. I think if having one it works the same way as the avatar as being something for your brand. It needs to showcase and draw a reading in. this could easily be the second thing a reader sees when clicking your link so it should be in the same consistency as the avatar. BUT people have opted out of having one. It isn't a necessity but if you want to have one it is kinda important.

Thumbnails are eh to me. I don't do much work with them i pick a scene in the update and use that image. this way readers can find a certain update if they want to go back to something. BUT i've scene comics where they do special lengthy art for the thumbnails and i think it's nice because it shows they are going an extra mile for this comic that is super important to them.

to sum up. These things are to showcase and show off your comic. and their importance is rated on which ones will be scene more often.

[panistheman]

I just finished a new avatar for Capefall.

Previously I would just use details from the comic pages.
Some earlier avatars:

I also like making thumbnails for my comic, although I don't think it's nearly as important.

[AnnaLandin]

I think the series-thumbnail (or are we calling that the avatar?) is very important - it's the thing that makes casual browsers click on your comic, after all! It better be something attention-grabbing.

I went with a crop of the cover of part 1, which I think has worked out pretty well:

As for episode-thumbnails... They're less important, as once people start browsing through those, they've already started at least considering reading your comic. I usually do one thumbnail per chapter - so that all pages of the chapter have the same thumbnail. It helps readers keep track of when the chapters start and end.

The banner at the top is also less important than the series-thumb/avatar - by the time I see it, I'll have already made the decision to check out the comic. It is a definite plus if it looks nice, as that makes a good impression, but it's not super-important - at that point, the comic has to do the legwork of convincing me.

[dracoplato]

Yep, avator is definitely most important! I don't really tend to look at banners or episode thumbnails as a rule, I just look straight at the comic page after clicking the avatar. So the avatar is really the only deciding factor for if I check out the comic or not.

[Elwetritsche]

The avatar is the bait you fling out to potential viewers, so it's the most important thing. I like to see at least one character on the avatar so I know what kind of style and colours (feels) await me here. I don't like avatars with just a logo or the ones that look completely different from the actual comic style.

The banner is something that shouldn't spoil to much in my opinion. I don't want to throw in characters or scenes that the reader isn't supposed to see if they're just starting to read. Or maybe I'm just overprotective here.

Mostly, I don't really notice the episode-banners ... I think it's cool when someone takes the time to puzzle them together for a picture or make them unique for each chapter or even each page, but it's not a must, I guess.

[Kayke]

To be honest the Series Thumbnail/Avatar I'm using for Creep was just going to be a place holder when I first posted it...

It's just taken from a panel of the comic. When I first signed up for Tapastic I thought I was going to have more time to mess around with stuff before I got any followers, but I got featured and my follower count went up and then the idea of messing around with stuff kind of went out the window. This image works though.

As for the thumbnails for the individual issues, I just use the same one for each page of the chapter. I pick a panel from the chapter and then put the chapter number at the bottom.

I don't use a banner, I personally prefer the way the layout looks without one.

[fanyart]

Hi creators! Sorry for the "spam", but I've made templates for header (banner) images both for Tapastic and Patreon pages with highlighted areas that will be always visible under most circumstances:

Both blank templates in png can be downloaded here, with some commentary and instructions:
https://goo.gl/kx7EUX

Please share this so that other creators know about the templates and can ensure that the important parts of their header design are always visible!

[bouncyegg]

I think the avatar is very important as it's what may make new readers click on your comic. Currently, I'm in the process of changing my comic's (The Bouncy Egg) avatar, although I've been dragging my feet on that project.

[Damatris]

Aaah, thank you!

I tried making a banner image for Tapastic some time ago but couldn't figure out how to make it look like I wanted. Even after checking the correct size it didn't show up like it was supposed to after uploading.

And yes, series avatar is the most important as it's what attracts casual browsers to click it. Now, if I just could figure out what would be best for it... Although, I do kinda like my current one.

[Jabbage]

I think how important the avatar is to getting new views is pretty intimidating! And there are no hard and fast rules about what works and what doesn't. For example here is my most successful avatar ever, for The Art of Monsters:

It's got a weird looking character looking enigmaticly at the reader, so it always managed to draw in the clicks. I thought I'd follow a similar approach for latest comic, Breaking the Lore, by having a close up of the main character. Problem is she's not so visually interesting being a normal human lady, and it didn't show off my art very well:

Soooo I swapped it around for the image below, which has the disadvantage of being a little more subtle and detailed, but there's hopefully a sense of the relationship between the two characters. I'm still not satisfied with it though, and it's not reaching people the way AoM did.

[miseryhunting]

Banners, icons, covers ARE extremely important and for a reason. I agree, it's part of the marketing for your story. As a reader, you use those as a guide regarding the nature of story/style/artist skill level/mood in a place with a huge choice for graphic stories. I'm very much influenced by what i see before i even read the summary for the story and chances are, if I don't feel like the artist has done good job on those, then their story is not going to be different.

But putting this aside, as an artist I actually ADORE creating covers, concept art and banners - it's a good way for you to difine your story and "put it into a small, concise box". In creating one, you think "what is it I want to really show from my story, what would be the essence?" or "what would I want my reader to be aware of from the start?". for example, if i'm writing a story about space, I would think about what would be the setting (on a space station, on a ship, on a different planet) or the characters (people in space/aliens/dogs in spacesuits). Is it scary and serious (a dark/cold colour pallette) or light and funny (brighter colours/ minimalistic setting/etc)?. A reader might like space stories but not aliens. They might like dogs in space, but not one where there is horror involved.

Over all, think of those as a business card - it shows your skills, level of dedication, sence of concept/colour and nature of your work.