The artwork components

Every piece of artwork on the site is a component of its own. They are listed here so they can be looked at, side by side, against the same ground and in the same light.

The banners

A banner is the artwork at the top of a page. The site has two kinds: the gauntlets, who came first, and the balance, which came later and brought the pans with it.

The gauntlets

The gauntlets sit on a cloud that drifts. The cloud is drawn rather than painted — a set of overlapping radial gradients — so it cannot show the fringe that a cut-out leaves at its edges, and it takes its colour from the theme rather than from the drawing.

The balance, hanging level

A balance with both pans at the same height. Neither pan is higher than the other, so neither of the marks glows.

The balance, tipping toward the left

The left pan is the low one and the right pan is the high one, so the Linux mark on the right glows. The glow is the point: the rising side is the side worth looking at.

The balance, tipping toward the right

The same artwork turned on its side. The scale is drawn once and mirrored, because a mirror is cheaper than a second picture and the drawing is near enough symmetrical that it does not show.

The marks

The marks are named rather than given by path, so a post can say what it wants in the scales without knowing where the artwork is kept.

An icon on one side only, and the high pan left empty. The pans take the marks by name, and either side may be left out.

The cloud

The cloud under the scale is part of the scale’s own component, not a piece of its own. It is an ovoid, wider than it is tall, because it stands in for the plinth of whatever sits on it, and it does not move. A cloud that drifts is a cloud the reader watches rather than reads.

The angel on a mission

The Angelic Warrior, in flight

The Angelic Warrior, in flight. He is a separate piece of artwork from the gauntlets in the banner. He is flying, and the artwork came with its own transparency, so unlike the seated gauntlets he needs no keying and no cloud behind him.

The standing banner

He stands with his arms folded, and he is narrower and taller than the flying warrior — a standing figure rather than one spread out in the air. Because he is tall, the banner gives him its height, and he stands on the page rather than on a cloud.

The rack

The whole rack, cut out of the background it was photographed against. It is taller than it is wide, so the banner gives it its height and the cloud fills the rest.

The artwork is a photograph rather than a drawing, so it needed no keying. The rack is dark and the cloud is light, and the two need very little between them.

The warrior

A figure standing with his arms out. He stands on the page rather than on a cloud, so the banner is left empty around him.

The artwork came as a premultiplied PNG, so the colour had to be divided back out by its own alpha before the white backdrop could be keyed away. That left a bright rim, which glows on the dark ground, so the rim is pulled back to the colour of the ink.

The warrior and the rack

The same warrior, standing beside a rack. The two are taller than they are wide, so the banner gives them their height.

The artwork came with a transparent background, so it needed no keying. It did need the bright rim pulled back, the same as the rest.

The halo

Assignments

A menu item whose first character carries a golden halo. The halo is a ring set at an angle above the letter, as though the character were catching the light. It fades in on hover and on focus.

The cards

The cards are the site’s other piece of artwork — the tiles on the category pages.

  • A card

    The card the missions page uses, with its image, its title and its body.

  • A judgement card

    • The registry

    A banner is chosen by name, and a name that is not in the registry fails the build rather than quietly falling back to the default. The same is true of the marks in the pans.

    That is the registry entry at work: the same component the works page uses, named from the front matter of a post.