How to make an avatar
Result
An icon that can be used on all your web presences.
Overview
An avatar is the small profile image that represents you on all of your web presences. You can use it as the default image on your MySpace and YouTube accounts as well as on message boards. You can even add this image to the ID3 tags of your MP3s. No matter what presence your fans visit, they will see your familiar avatar.
Related Categories: Art & Graphics
Estimated Preparation time: A few hours
Estimated Result Time: Immediate
Estimated Cost: FREE
What You Need to Do This:
- A color palette
- Image ideas
Directions
1. Draw a design or find a graphic designer to help you.
Your mascot should be a line drawing and not a picture. Because of its small size, it should be an image only with no words. Check out our Art & Graphics category for help if you need a designer.
2. Add colors from your color palette for the design.
If you do not have colors yet, click here to find out how to make a color palette. You want your avatar to match your site and mascot, so stick with the same color scheme.
3. Create mascot in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop layered format.
This makes it easy to resize your avatar, manipulate it, and put it into other pictures. Layers allow you to make changes to your avatar easily without having to create a brand new image everytime.
4. Save your avatar as a small square, either 80x80 or 100x100 pixels.
Most sites have the default image as a square. If you need help creating this, there are avatar making sites that can do it for free. Check out Gravatar which will take any of your images and turn them into an 80x80 avatar.
5. Use the same avatar for all of your web presence profiles.
All of your profiles should have the same avatar, so that is what fans see on each web presence. Use it for your instant messaging account and on your blog. Set your avatar as the ID3 image tag embedded in all of your MP3s.