Banner Bicentennial

My apologies in advance for devoting a post to my love of banners, a post that will hold little interest for many I am sure, but I couldn't let number 200 go by without a brief look back. It's a way of assessing for myself what I do here at Cinema Styles and writing a post on a blog has become, for better or worse, a public written equivalent of thinking out loud.

When I first began Cinema Styles in July of 2007 I made a banner that I thought would be the banner of the site for years to come. This one:

After about a month I became restless and wanted to change it and did. Still, by October, I had only used three banners and wanted to create a different one for my first theme month ever, Cinema Styles Shocktober. I created three new ones and rotated them out throughout the month. Then by December I had become bored with the whole look of my blog, changed the design and banner size and began rotating them out more rapidly, a new one every few days. By January, I had created so many I decided to change them for every new post. At present I have enough already complete but still unused banners to carry me through the year without creating another until 2010 (the year we make contact). And yet I still make them regularly and still make ones specific to a post if I can find nothing I have already done that fits. In a way, I consider them secondary mini-posts next to the main one above which they are displayed. And they do serve a purpose outside of my photoshop graphic design tinkering obsessions. They are my way of signaling to the new reader both a love of film and an invitation to relax; we'll discuss movies here but we won't be reverentially solemn about it all. That said, here are some highlights for 2008 in which today's banner is the 186th of the year so far and the 200th overall.

This one is my most viewed banner on my Flickr account. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the movie but I have used many popular films whose banners barely have any views. Who knows, but for whatever reason, it's number one. And it's animated. Click on the pic to see the full animation.

I did nothing but animated banners for a couple of months but it became too cumbersome and time consuming so I stopped. Still, I liked the results and these are my three favorites:

This one was done for Marilyn's blockbuster blogathon on Dancing in the Movies. Click to see the animated celebration of dance.

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I did this one because I love doing Metropolis banners, period. I've done three so far and have several more already made waiting in the wings. Click to see Maria's transformation.

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This one was done for my good friend Bill who won my first ever DVD giveaway game. He was stuck on the first of eight riddles while Adam Ross had already made it all the way to the last one. And Bill won! Sorry Adam, not trying to bring back bad memories but I found that kind of amazing at the time and still do. Kind of like the tortoise and the hare story come to life, only Adam was never cocky. Also Kimberly and Marilyn came just a hairsbreadth away from winning themselves. Whoever wins the next one will have their own animated banner too. Could Arbogast be the next Adam? Will Fox be the next Bill? Stay tuned. Click to see Bill's winning answer.

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This banner was designed by me and written by Marilyn and Arbogast. Marilyn wrote the top part, Arbo the tagline.

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Finally, for whatever reason, I've always liked these banners but there are plenty of others to choose from. Thanks to everyone for their patience with me and this post. Much appreciated.