Carlisle banner

This year one of the Carlisle policies for having a club tent requires having a banner. Not a bid deal but the problem has been getting the inspiration for a design. I want to do something different but also not too specific as my plan is to hang it in my garage after the show and to possibly reuse it in the future for other events. My inspiration thus far has led me to this:

Carlisle Banner Draft

At this small size some of the refinements that are still required are not noticeable. The final print size is going to be 42″w x 28″h.

You may have noticed that the font I use for the twf.com logo at the top of every page is derived from the font used for “Mustang” in the fox body era. I had originally done the font a long time ago in software I no longer have a license to and thus cannot access the source file in its native format. This time around I needed it to scale larger (each character will print at about 4″ x 2″) so I really needed that source. Unfortunately, I had to use my current graphics software and recreate the font from scratch!

The banner uses the same green as this site which has sort of become the “classic” color for the site and all things related to it. The addition of red and yellow bands around the ring join the white and green to represent (roughly) the colors of all of the feature cars. The circular logo was inspired by a gift given to me by a friend just this week. The gift was given for my garage and is a Texaco thermometer. It uses a classic round logo with the star on the inside. Writing is present around the ring.

Texaco thermometer

My green background seemed too plain so I was browsing looking for banner ideas and found a discussion on using a tire tread as a photoshop brush. One recommendation to someone looking for such a brush was to create their own. I thought, “I could do that.” And, I did. I used the same tread pattern as is on my current set of tires. The tracks overlay the rings but not the white font.

I have more tweaking to do but I’m getting closer. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it and how I might improve it.

Added Google charts to the registry

In mid-2006 I did a geographical analysis of where the cars in my registry were located. It consisted of superimposing the counts per state over a map of the U.S. I used increasing size fonts to further emphasize. It was nice but it was a pain in the neck and I have never issued an update.

Last week I discovered Google charts while browsing a favorite site of mine which was showing their customers for the current day by state using a map through the Google charting service. I thought, “wouldn’t this be great for my registry.” So, I spent time over the last few days converting most of my tabular registry data into graphical form.

As an example, here are registrations of 1993 feature cars by state as of May 4, 2008 (the lighter the green the more cars).

93 registrations by US State

I myself am a very visual person so I really get into this and find more value from it than tabular data. Although, not all statistics I am collecting made good charts. All of the raw numbers are still included either separate from the charts or included within the charts.

Currently, they do not do the Canadian provinces on maps. I could only do a world map with Canada and USA each as a whole. I thought this had limited value so I just stuck to the U.S. and hope not to offend our friends up north. If Google does start to offer more detail for Canada I will be sure to add it.

Be sure to check out my updated 1992 and 1993 registry stats in order to see the full makeover.