Retrocade Marquee - My First Try

[froggerman]

Hi All,

Nannuu was kind enough to allow me to use his Pac-Man / Ms. Pac-Man background for my marquee. Simple I thought, just drop a font on the background and I would be done. Well no such luck.  

I know there are alot of much more experience people here that could give me some good suggestion on how to improve this marquee.

[froggerman]

Alternate Colour.

[walls83]

I think the font either needs to be changed or made bigger.  there are too many things going on with the background and lettering.

[froggerman]

How does this one look? Am I going in the right direction?

[Felsir]

I like this font better.
However, the red lettering doesn't contrast well enough with the background picture. My suggestion is to change the red in the backdrop to completely blue.
This keeps the blue-red theme. What colours is your cabinet? A good marquee matches the style of tha cabinet IMHO.

[froggerman]

The cabinet is not painted yet. Black would be easy but I think I would like to put a colour on the side if I don't do side art. I still haven't decided.

[froggerman]

With a 'Mame' flavour.

[patrickl]

Maybe you can give thge font a "glow" around it so the background doesn't interfere so much.

[maraxle]

How about white lettering?  Or maybe yellow?  That would probably jump out at you, and work well with a back light.

[Nannuu]

I really like this lettering and color style.  You may want to give it a try and see how it looks.  That background is terribly busy, a glow would really help separate the logo.

http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=10;action=display;threadid=17313

[froggerman]

I did try yellow letters, both bright yellow and sort of a Pac-Man yellow and you are right, they really stand out. My wife didn't like them however.

That background is terribly busy, a glow would really help separate the logo.

http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=10;action=display;threadid=17313

Although it doesn't really show up on this small image I did attemp to put a glow around the letters. I used Photoshop to add the glow effect, it makes it look like the letters are backlit a little. I will try to put a glow around them as you suggest in that referenced link. I am just not sure that I know how at the moment. I did print it out on a 8.5 x 11 piece of photo paper. That really helped getting an idea of what the colours really looked like.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[froggerman]

Here is a close-up of the subtle glow that the marquee currently has. Nannuu, how to I get that more solid glow like the example you linked to?

[froggerman]

Here is a sample with more 'glow'

[dmsuchy]

How about your background going from the red to orange instead of blue? You kinda want to keep the lettering an opposite color of the background so that the lettering stands out instead of blending in. Keep the background "warm" and the lettering "cool". But otherwise the latest font your using looks really cool.

[froggerman]

I had really wanted to keep the background that Nannuu created. I like the Pac-Man to Ms Pac-Man fade. It definitely presents a lot of challenges. I have tried with a harder bevel, and no 'glow'.

[walls83]

It looks better.  maybe do a pacman blue fade to the ms pacman pink on the lettering.  Or the other way around.  

[froggerman]

Is this what you had in mind? The pink one is a little different.

[froggerman]

Sorry for posting so many options but walls83 did have a very good suggestion.

[walls83]

I like...very nice

I think I would go with the opposite colors on opposite backgrounds

nice stuff frogger

[crashwg]

My vote is for #2 on reply 16.

Awesome work BTW.

[froggerman]

My vote is for #2 on reply 16.

Awesome work BTW.

That is looking like the most likely so far. I have it printed out on photo paper and it looks better everytime I walk by it.

[ErikRuud]

Nice work on the Marquee.

Retrocade is a cool name.

I was going to use it, but I decided not to because it is the name of another emulator. (It is actually the name of the PC on my network)

http://www.isomedia.com/homes/blutz/emurumor/retrocade.htm

[SirPeale]

I may be in the minority here, but I Think the backgrounds needs to be solid.  Not a solid color, but the Pac maze needs to be one color, not fade from one to the other.

[patrickl]

I think the text with the heavier glow (in reply #12) will look better when backlit .

Maybe another idea would be to put the playingfield in a perspective and set the text up on it.

[Oldskool]

I may be in the minority here, but I Think the backgrounds needs to be solid.  Not a solid color, but the Pac maze needs to be one color, not fade from one to the other.

I agree.

I find the background to be the weakest part of the marquee(s) so far.

Sorry.....

[XtraSmiley]

OK, I like the second post the best!  The original font works so much better since it is a throw back style, not that new font you've got.  I just don't dig the green.  Having the BG change like that is fine as long as the word doesn't.  That mix of blue to red for the letters sucks IMO.  Go back to the old font as a yellow or something.  Just my $.02.

[Lilwolf]

Just one thing that might annoy others...

but it does have a pac-man theme in the background... The C could be a pac-man...  Might be worth a quick try.

[froggerman]

Here is another quick try using the PacMan style font. What are your comments on this marquee compared to the previous font? I also figured out how to put a large glow around the characters in Illustrator so this marquee is all in AI.

[mahuti]

use less glow. The greater amount of white will be very bright on the finished cab. It's also a bit of a disconnect from the cab. I think your other attempts were better.

In the end, do what YOU like. They all look good.

[froggerman]

use less glow. The greater amount of white will be very bright on the finished cab.

Mahuti, do you have any sort of rule-of-thumb for how much glow to use? A 1/4" or 1/2"? I appreciate your comments and enjoy learning this new stuff.

[mahuti]

I don't have any hard & fast rules, per s