Redesigning BookBrainz achievement badges

Hiya. This is c1e0.
I have been enjoying contributing to BookBrainz and gaining new badges. I don’t like how plain/bland the BB badges look. There’s definitely room for improvement.

I came across the Fedora badges and loved how expansive and visually appealing they look. Any chance we can make the BookBrainz badges more beautiful? I think prettier badges will encourage people to work for them!

I’ll like some opinions on the idea of improving badges, as well as some feedback on some sample designs. I redesigned some existing badges – These are still rough drafts and I believe there is room for improvement :slight_smile:

Revisionist Badges

Instead of naming the badges as Revisionist I, Revisionist II, and Revisionist III, we could give them cooler names. In addition, there is a huge jump from Revisionist II (Perform 50 revisions) to Revisionist III (Perform 250 revisions). We can create another breakpoint for “Perform 100 revisions”.

Name suggestions

Revisionist I → Junior Revisionist (Perform 1 revision)
Revisionist II → Associate Revisionist (Perform 50 revisions)
Senior Revisionist (Perform 100 revisions)
Revisionist III - > Master Revisionist (Perform 250 revisions)

Designs

Revisionist – First Concepts

Here, I propose using different writing materials to represent the levels of achievements. From a pencil to multiple pencils to a pen to a quill.

Junior Revisionist (Perform 1 revision)

1.1

Associate Revisionist (Perform 50 revisions)

2.1

Senior Revisionist (Perform 100 revisions)

none

Master Revisionist (Perform 250 revisions)

3

Revisionist – Second Concepts

Here, we could illustrate the number of revisions, using ink on a paper. A rising stack of papers on the side shows the increasing revisions

Junior Revisionist (Perform 1 revision)

1.2

Associate Revisionist (Perform 50 revisions)

2.2

…and so on…

Comparisons

Here are the redesigns alongside the old designs for comparison.




This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot more badges that need more love.
Thoughts? @mr_monkey @Freso @prabalsingh24 @CatQuest @anyone_else

15 Likes

Love the first concept - are they your illustrations or have you sourced them from somewhere?

@aerozol I grabbed some icons Flaticon.com and modified their colors, shapes and layouts. I could whip up designs from scratch, if necessary.

Heyy, Wow, I love these new designs, they’re much more colorful and more attractive!!
I admit Revisionist II don’t sound too good and these new names are much better Revisionist II -> Associate Revisionist

They look fantastic, I must say ! Great job !

I really like the look of them, in particular the first concept.
With that shadow border, they look like stickers I would want to have on my computer :smiley:

Although the second concept also works, I find they look a bit flatter and not as playful as the first one.
I like the background and how some parts of the design are popping out over the border. It gives a very dynamic look.

I personally like the evolution of pens to convey mastery. I would even say the first one could be a crayon, and replacing n°2 with n°1 (the pencil).

Maybe each category of badges could have a different background color to clearly separate them?

I also agree with the renaming, they sound a lot better. As for the levels, I would put mastery at 500 to make it a real challenge :slight_smile: having just hit that mark I know it takes some time, but active contributors will definitely hit it.

As far as I’m concerned, these are miles better than what we currently have, and there’s no question as to wether we should go with it.
It’s just a question of producing the other ones to have a homogenous look :slight_smile:

I have all confidence in you for the continuation, but don’t hesitate if you want to discuss concepts!

The question @aerozol raised is of interest: make sure the graphical elements you use are completely free to use and copyright free . We could mention artist names in the badges page if need be (like we do for the homepage photo, in the footer) but I think it’ll be easier if they are CC0 license, for example).

5 Likes

@mr_monkey Thanks for the feedback.
I like the idea of starting with a crayon :slight_smile:

Yes, different background colors for every category is a good idea. Are there any plans to implement the gamification system on other projects (MetaBrainz, CritiqueBrainz, etc)? If so, the inner border color could be different for every project.

We could leave Master Revisionist at 250 revisions, and name 500 revisions as Grandmaster Revisionist. Or, name them like this:
1 - Junior Revisionist
50 - Associate Revisionist
100 - Senior Revisionist
250 - Chief Revisionist
500 - Master Revisionist
1000 - Grandmaster Revisionist

Agreed, it’ll be much better do make illustrations from scratch to prevent any copyright issues.

I’m not sure I can continue this until completion, because it’s a lot of work and I don’t have much time. Maybe over the years, we’ll see. I just wanted to put the idea out there, so it can be considered. Several people can be welcomed to share badge ideas and create designs.

Here are some things we may do to ease and simplify contributions:

  • Create a new category here or on Jira called BookBrainz-badges. (T)Here, people can suggest and discuss new badge ideas and/ existing designs and names. (I like how it is done at the Fedora Project)
  • Provide a badge style guide and SVG templates that should be followed for every badge (Fedora Project inspiration).

I admit, this is a lot of work! Question is, do we consider it to be worth it?
Would this make for a good GSoC project or GCI tasks someday? Seems like the fastest way to achieve this.

5 Likes

I finally have access to com.meb.org again! yay!
I really like these - and I also agree with a lot of the feedback monkey gave, I like renaming, I like pencils evolving to pens (thought i wouldn’t start with a crayon, to me, that means “colour” not “writing” (also we shouldn’t imply crayons are “beginner” level, while they are common for children, they are also used by adults for art.))

I especially like the “ta-da!” background of the first concept, also that the “BB colour-scheme” is still evident here it makes them clearly BookBrainz (perhaps in the future the other sites will have achievements too, and one could display all these on their metabrainz user page :​D)

Also agree that levels should be adjusted - more levels should be added and their levels exponential, much like in real games the first levels come fast, then it takes longer, until the final ones require real effort.
The final “mastery” level should be more than 500, possibly 5000 or 20 000!
Think of the amounts of edits in MusicBrainz - we want to future proof this as well so that it’s still interesting for revisioners 4,14 and 40 years down the line.