Blog Headers Art Roundup Extravaganza

Since my last roundup of headers in 2009, I figured it was time to gather some of the hits and misses of the past two years. After that post, I was messing around with a lot of different options (as always, click on the images for bigger versions).

Based on Beeman's Gum, I loved this August 2009 design but after a few weeks it didn't seem to be a good fit for the site:



While I have a great appreciation for the De Stijl artwork of Piet Mondrian, there's a reason why this one never saw the front page. Mostly a sketch to figure out something new, which is a good way to stimulate the old frontal lobes:



The Schwa Corporation version wasn't much better, but it was October and I considered putting this up for Halloween:



This October 2009 blue header stayed up for a while, and I still like it, based loosely on the 1967-1974 SAAB logo from Sweden:



One of my all time favorites, and I'm still proud of it... the beautiful January 2010, five year anniversary, art deco, aviation-themed header, reminiscent of The Rocketeer:



In September 2010 I briefly played around with a Victorian theme, but couldn't get it to work. It was old fashioned in the wrong way, and the longer I played with it, the more it looked like a bordello sign from an old Western:



I scrapped it all and decided to go bigger and bolder with a 1950s look, but this wasn't quite right....



Shift the hue a bit and hey, that looks better. This and the argyle pattern stayed up for a long time to the love and disgust of many:



Finally time to retire the slant and argyle... No, we're not going to use the look of a 1990s 'zine, though if this had been made into a movie it would have starred Ben Stiller, Winona Ryder, or Bridget Fonda. Perhaps all of them:



I flirted with the idea of the "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign, but really, it needs more bats. I'm determined to come back to this one some day. I'm really happy about the jaunty star on top of the "i" in "reviews":



Finally settled on the look of a 1940s-era Saturday Evening Post that's been scratched and scuffed and banged around for 70 years: