How to make site buttons?

[clowdywings]

hello all! i was wondering how other people make their site button. specifically the 88x31 button (like the one i have in my signature). i made the one in my signature using this button maker, but i was wondering how other people made theirs. i don't want to make a button just to dramatically downsize it and have it unreadable, but as of right now that's what i'm thinking about.

[xXWebMasterXx_Gina]

I just make them from scratch with FireAlpaca as I also animate them frame by frame. I start with a transparent 88x31 canvas and create two layers, one for the background and one for the border. Lately I've found it more useful to design the border first as it sets the tone for the rest of the piece. Some fancier border designs will also require more space; so it's good to what you are left with before you start the main content rather than having to make sacrifices later down the line.

Readability is definitely a big concern. I played around with a bunch of different fonts and found that Century Gothic is very readable at 3pt, so I've adopted it for pretty much all of my buttons. It is a little samey, so I'd love to hear if anyone has any other font recommendations.

I've definitely had to abandon button ideas since the assets I was using didn't scale well enough; sometimes I can cheat it a bit by imagining the button to be like a window or veiwport; I keep the assets at a large scale but animate them so most of the image crosses into view, but this is not always a viable solution. In these cases, the idea might be better off retooled as banner ad rather than scrapping it entirely. I'm not sure what the agreed specs are on that but my (horizontal) banner ads are 468x60.

[BUTCHBONEZ]

i just used pixilart and a favicon i liked

[wygolvillage]

I just make them from scratch with FireAlpaca as I also animate them frame by frame. I start with a transparent 88x31 canvas and create two layers, one for the background and one for the border. Lately I've found it more useful to design the border first as it sets the tone for the rest of the piece. Some fancier border designs will also require more space; so it's good to what you are left with before you start the main content rather than having to make sacrifices later down the line.

Readability is definitely a big concern. I played around with a bunch of different fonts and found that Century Gothic is very readable at 3pt, so I've adopted it for pretty much all of my buttons. It is a little samey, so I'd love to hear if anyone has any other font recommendations.

This is exactly how I make them. I don't use fonts though, I usually do text via my own pixel art so I can be sure it looks good.

[xixxii]

i used this freeware program that's specifically for making gifs to make mine! it's a little frustrating sometimes because it has some limitations (it's more than 20 years old), but i'm not a pixel artist or anything so it's good enough for my purposes. sometimes i edit frames in paint.net first and then copy-paste them into jasc.

[clowdywings]

Century Gothic is very readable at 3pt, so I've adopted it for pretty much all of my buttons.

good to know thank you!! your post is very helpful!

pixilart and a favicon i liked

gotcha, makes sense. that's similar to what i did

I usually do text via my own pixel art so I can be sure it looks good.

oh i didn't consider this before! that's a good idea, tysm!

i used this freeware program that's specifically for making gifs to make mine! i

thank you so much! I'll take a look at it!