rw-designer profile guidelines

This page explains how to set up individual parts of your profile page on rw-designer.com.

The basics

The core information about you can be accessed and modified on your account page. That is the page, where you can log off.

Nick

You can freely modify your nick, but please don't change it too often. Otherwise, people will be confused and may not recognize you. The maximum length of your nickname is 64 English characters. If you use non-English characters, the maximum may be shorter.

E-mail

Email is the key to your account and you cannot change it directly (to protect you from people, who would want to steal your account). If you really must have your email changed, write an email from your old email account to info@rw-designer.com.

Name

If you decide to fill in the Name field, please use your full real name. If you do not want to reveal you real name, leave the field empty. If you fill in a fake name, you may lose your account.

Gender

If you decide to specify your gender, the web site will make use of it - you get a male or female default profile icon and Scunkie will address you correctly.

Web site

If you have a web site about yourself, your hobbies or your work, please specify its address on your profile. Use a full URL, including protocol specification (http:).

Profile visibility

The Profile option has 3 choices:

• 'Private' - your profile page will only be accessible to logged in users.
• 'Public' - your profile page (except your email and name) will be visible for everyone.
• 'Public - with your email and name visible' - all information on your profile page will be visible for everyone.

Contacts

Additional contacts can be specified directly on your profile page. You can access your profile page by clicking on you nick in the upper right corner of any page.

To test if your contact information is filled in correctly, log out and access your page. While logged off, your profile page looks the way other people see it.

You can use up to 3 contact fields and the following options are supported:

ICQ

Fill in your ICQ number in the box.

Skype

Fill in your Skype name in the box.

Twitter

Fill in your Twitter user name in the box.

Facebook

Fill in your Facebook url in the box. Before you can do that, you need to configure an url within Facebook. To learn more about it, visit http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=155298084537506

Google+

Fill in your Google identifier in the box. The Google identifier is a long number you can obtain by visiting your Google+ profile (click on the Profile icon on Google+) and looking at the address bar. My address looks like this: https://plus.google.com/u/0/112610918367258138396/posts and 112610918367258138396 is my identifier.

Alternate email

If you want to display another email on your account page, you can use this field.

Photo

Your photo is displayed on your profile page.

It is recommended to upload a photo of your face to let other users know, who are they communicating with. But you may use any picture or no picture at all. To remove your current photo, click the Upload button without selecting a file.

Icon

Icons are used in multiple places on the rw-designer web site and therefore there are strict rules on how a user icon may look like. Currently, user icons are used in the comments section of many pages and on icon and cursor set pages.

User icons are images that can be uploaded from your profile page and they must fulfill the following criteria:

• Profile icons must be in PNG format with transparent background.
• Size of the uploaded picture must be exactly 150x200 pixels.
• The uploaded picture must be an illustration of yourself, a traced photo. The head must occupy at least 50% of the space. Please fill as much of the available space as possible, do not leave any empty space above your head.
• User icon must be approved by administrators before it is displayed to other users.

If the uploaded image is not approved, it will be deleted by administrators.

Why can't I use any picture as my icon?

As the icon is used on many pages of this web, not just on your profile page, it should fit the style of the web and all profile pictures should use a matching style. The icon should represent the real you, but using a photo is not allowed. Instead, you use a photo as a starting point and by creating an icon, you demonstrate to other users that you have mastered the basic graphic designing skills.

How to create an illustration of yourself?

Get the latest version of RealWorld Paint with support for vector layers. Pick a suitable photo of yourself and open it. Create a new vector layer, switch to the Shape tool and start tracing the photo. The illustration should not be too detailed, try to attain the same level of detail as the reference pictures. Usually, you'll need to place 10-20 shapes (neck, hair, face, mouth, ears, eyes, nose, t-shirt, etc.). A video tutorial is available. And here is another tutorial.

What if you are unable to create the illustration?

Perhaps you can ask in the forum. Maybe someone will create a user icon for you. If you are wondering, who has custom user icon, here is a list of approved icons.