Does it really make a difference whether there is a person on your header? I believe it does change the mood a bit, but does it have a negative or positive affect? Some headers just have buildings and the like. Is that better?

I personally just like a good graphic where I can read the title. The whole person in the header thing is definitely a trend among RPGs, and one that I disagree with. I see a lot on graphics sites where images that don't have a celebrity get knocked for their 'source' and I think it's rather silly.

I also don't like the trend toward enormous banners that take up most of the screen.

I think as long as the banner looks nice, it doesn't matter whether or not there is a celebrity in there. I just tend to do better with blends and thus use images of some of my favorite celebrities.

I think as long as the graphic is good and not huge it doesn't really matter. On our board we started out with people in our banner, but as the board grew and we had so many characters, I changed it to a skyline with the board title. Simple, but it works well with our skin and I'm just as happy with that as I was with the old one.

I don't have a major problem with headers that have people in it, though I prefer simple ones. Such as the skyline type that wisteria mentioned. I have some complex about banners that are [A]large and [B]attracts too much attention. I'd rather the plot be more important.

I also like to make headers of paintings and such. I just like the feel, and if you have the right skin it can look really nice ^.^

Just wondering, what do you all consider "large"?
The banners I make are around 760 pixels in width because that's
how big the average forum is, at least for my resolution (1024x768)...
But the height is only 150 px so it's not huge.

I don't like seeing celebrities on them. Seeing people is no big deal...
With celebs, it just seems like it's an RP based on a movie or really
centered around the canons, which is a turn off. ;[

For instance, in high school RPs, it's okay seeing some random teens
about to kiss or something, but I don't want to see celebrities.

I didn't mean width; I meant height. I don't care if the image spans the forum (most of mine do), but a lot of banners are over 250px high, and fill the screen. They also make tend to the site a lot slower.

Yup, that's my general thinking. On some boards the bigger banner works (depending on the skin) but generally 200 px is my absolute limit. :)

I guess it depends on who is in the header. I don't mind people in the header if they have relevance to the story. If they're just random celebrities to make it "look pretty," then what's the point.

I would definitely rather look at a picture of a beautiful (or even not so beautiful) scene than a person.

I'm going to agree with you on the last part. I dont mind seeing people in headers as long as they aren't celebs or meant to represent the main canon people. If it's just two people about to kiss, or holding hands or something of the like, I dont mind too much. My in the making forum has something of a person in the banner, but it's all graphiced out, where you can't even tell it's a person unless you were looking. It was just there for effect and I like it a lot. I also saw another vampire site that just had a really cool looking vampire in the header. It sets the theme, but has nothing to do with outlining the main characters, which I liked.

People in the banner? I have the tendency to add a stock image to my banners so it wouldn't look too plain :o.

In my opinion people are fine. But as above peopel said, I think that celebs are annoying to have. All I need is for it to say the name of the site. I mean the plot is all I really care about. I don't mind people, but I hate it when it had canons becasue then I tend to think the site is only canons.

Amen to that. I will not join a site that has a canon in the header. All it does is say to me is "this rpg is all about the canons and you may never get fit into the plot."

_{I would have to say I’m not particularly keen on the whole person in sigs. Of course if it is a daily life RP then sometimes it cannot be avoided in the header and it looks nice sometimes. But done badly and in a manner which is not unique simply doesn’t do it for me. I like abstract or simple sigs where the title is easy on the eyes and it doesn’t continuous steal your attention away from the board. Is that just me being a snob?} (x.x)