Forum Signature Art × Frutiger Aero

The same years' glossy, light and airy interface look against the sig's dark, smudged depth.

From the research on Forum Signature Art (Sig & C4D Render Graphics)

Mix them and make something Forum Signature Art Frutiger Aero

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Forum Signature Art, their arrangement from Forum Signature Art, the finish from Frutiger Aero. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Forum Signature Art (Sig & C4D Render Graphics) Frutiger Aero

Type from Frutiger Aero: Humanist sans
Colour from Forum Signature Art: Analogous harmony
Dark ground
Form from Forum Signature Art: Borders & frames
Non-representational
Composition from Forum Signature Art: Collage & layering
Single focal point
Surface from Frutiger Aero: Gloss & highlights
Frosted glass

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Frutiger Aero

Circuit

Fira Sans, standing in for Frutiger (Adrian Frutiger, 1976)

Text · Forum Signature Art

A banner image attached under every forum post as a personal stamp. It is a single Photoshop composite: a cut-out 'render' of a game, anime or film character or an athlete, set against a background smudged and stretched from the same picture, layered with semi-transparent abstract Cinema 4D renders, fractal flames and grunge or 'tech' brushes, pulled into one tint and framed by a thin border. The user's name is set small. Weekly 'Signature of the Week' contests and shared tutorials drove the craft. Its dates (2004 to 2013) are evidence dates, not firm limits.

VT323; Forum Signature Art used Tiny bitmap pixel fonts, often capitals-only, set at native size with anti-aliasing off, such as Silkscreen (Jason Kottke), a free pixel typeface made for web graphics, for usernames and taglines and Thin, widely letterspaced sans for the name and a short caption

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Forum Signature Art, with a counter-accent from Frutiger Aero. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Forum Signature Art (Sig & C4D Render Graphics) Frutiger Aero

#0b1018 ground · 36%
#d7eef5 ink · 14%
#e8892b accent · 18%
#22c3c9 accent · 14%
#4f86a8 accent · 10%
#4fb3e8 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #0b1018;
  --ink: #d7eef5;
  --accent-1: #e8892b;
  --accent-2: #22c3c9;
  --accent-3: #4f86a8;
  --accent-4: #4fb3e8;
  --font-display: "Fira Sans", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "VT323", monospace;
}

Use it with care

Forum Signature Art (Sig & C4D Render Graphics): Sigs were built from ripped official art, photographs and other members' renders and brushes; the communities themselves policed 'rips'. When reviving the look, use licensed or self-made figures and resources rather than lifting characters or another maker's work.

The two styles

2004–2013 · Global / networked, North America, Western Europe Forum Signature Art (Sig & C4D Render Graphics) A banner image attached under every forum post as a personal stamp. It is a single Photoshop composite: a cut-out 'render' of a game, anime or film character or an athlete, set against a background smudged and stretched from the same picture, layered with semi-transparent abstract Cinema 4D renders, fractal flames and grunge or 'tech' brushes, pulled into one tint and framed by a thin border. The user's name is set small. Weekly 'Signature of the Week' contests and shared tutorials drove the craft. Its dates (2004 to 2013) are evidence dates, not firm limits. 2004–2013 · Global / networked Frutiger Aero The glossy, optimistic look of consumer technology from the mid-2000s to the early 2010s, retrospectively named in 2017 by the Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute after Windows Vista's Aero interface and Adrian Frutiger's humanist sans. Translucent glass panels, glossy orbs and buttons, water droplets, bubbles, auroras, green fields and blue skies fused technology with clean nature, set in airy humanist sans-serifs.