A Banner Occasion

Over the years, theLogBook.com has sported many colorful logos and banners. Some of them have been unabashed advertisements for items being sold on the site, and others have been a bit more colorful. Here's a guided tour through the history of that first graphic you see at the top of any page.

The original, circa 1996, from the original LogBook web site.
(Rendered on an Amiga-based Video Toaster 4000 system with Lightwave 3D.)

Pretty simple stuff; from the ExecPC LogBook site, sometime in early 98.

A little more elaborate and an early animated banner.

Back when the site was celebrating its tenth anniversary.

Examples of some of the original interchangeable banners from the site redesign in late 2001.

A couple of banners from 2002-2003. Going for a bit of a stately-yet-spacey look.

The most commented-on banners for the site, ever. I could probably put a naked woman
in the banner and not get the kind of e-mails that the first of these generated. The second
one isn't quite as successful, but by God, people e-mailed in pretty good numbers wanting
to know if this comic strip would be continuing every week. What I told everyone at the
time was that it was really meant to be a one-off, but hey, since everyone was so interested...maybe. I honestly had no specific story in mind, and just wanted to get four
iconic Doctor Who images (the TARDIS, Hartnell's Doctor, McGann's Doctor, and some Daleks) into a single banner. These were created by running treated publicity photos
through some Virtual Painter filters in Paint Shop Pro - more than anything, these banners
were me experimenting with PSP 8 for the first time. As for why this phenomenon hasn't recurred...it's tempting to continue with something like this as a running feature of the site,
but I barely have enough time to keep up with the site's regular content that just requires
writing and HTML coding as it is - even considering how cheaply I pulled this stunt off
(indeed, a couple of the e-mails I got were giving me hell for "trying to Photoshop your way
into being a comic artist instead of having any talent," because, of course, no professional comics artists use any kind of digital imaging or enhancement). Coming up with a comic
strip every week? It was fun just this once, but it ain't gonna happen.