Tips on How to – User Lookup Spotlight Trophy

     So, you fancy yourself that nifty looking user spotlight trophy? You want to show all Neopia who you adore the most? Who you like to dedicate yourself and your life too? Who you want to follow and is your role model? Than user spotlight of the week is the perfect way to showcase your impression other than publicly show your inner self plus a possibly 5 minute fames in the new features.

     I may consider myself a veteran in entering the spotlight with that four times winner trophies under my belt in my lookup to show off to all Neopia. Besides, anything about coding that I know and implement in my lookup is self-taught, I still called myself an amateur, because that who I am. Anyhow, for first timer trying for the trophy, it can be quite daunting because there are lots of creative entries. You cannot see it but for your sake just imagined that there are lots of them. You never know if you will be selected or not, just wish that lady luck is on your side.

     Be as it may, there are certain rules that you need to follow through in order to be selected as a winner. There are regular contest rules and there are submission policy that your need to adhere. Respect other content owner and never claim right on something that is not yours. Leave credits if you must as it show that you respect the creative creator ownership.

     Now I have said what been brewing in my mind, below are the tips that you can take as a consideration if you want to enter user spotlight. Though I cannot guarantee whether you will be chosen or not. Proceed at your own risk.

     1. Be original and creative

     Originality is what Neopets User Lookup Judging Team of DOOM is looking for. You can find your inspiration by skimming through the calendar to get some ideas. As for example, you love the malicious dark faerie; Jhudora, and you want to make a lookup based on her. You can find pictures in downloadable content at the Pet Central. As an alternative, if you know your way around Photoshop or any other software similar to Photoshop plus basic knowledge about resolutions and pixels, you can try your hand in editing, resizing and cropping the pictures.

     Neopets fans site content partners such as Jellyneo and its affiliate, Jellyneo Preview has large image content that you can choose to make your graphics. Although you need to get yourself handy to work around with Photoshop. Other fan site such as Dr. Sloth’s Image Emporium, DresstoImpress and The DailyNeopets Graphic also have an abundance amount of graphics for you to use. Just remember to leave credits wherever it dues or else you will consider to be stealing other works.

     2. Have a unique theme or something people haven’t thought about

     If you have noticed, most of the spotlight winner chose Faerie, Neopian World, Villains and other famous categories to work on their lookup. These ideas are being used extensively, whilst games and other non-popular categories are limited. As for example, my AAA, Ghoul Catcher and Legends and Letters lookup entry, are fall under games category and that can be called as unique as it can be in my book because they appeared only once in a blue moon.

     Additional unique aspect that can be considered is how you design your layout if you cannot come out with new theme ideas. There are many types of design layout such as anchored, scroll and tiles layout. Most important thing to remember before you starts coding your lookup, your stats must always be visible. Other section like neohome, navigations and journals can be hidden if you don’t want them in your lookup.

     Play around with CSS and HTML if you have more in depth knowledge about them. If not, you can try asking around neoboard or neomailing other experts. Nowadays, you can even get information about coding in pet page e.g. Kaikuto (they have lots of coding helps for your perusal). If you want to learn how to make lookup from scratch, search for Orloz. They have excellent tutorials to guide you through making your first own brand new lookup.

     3. Keep it simple, clear and clean

     First and foremost, choose you background wisely. Stay away from contrasting color. Your background should not be too glaring or bright. Choose warm color, or pastel color if you can. Balancing your light and dark colors so people can see what you want to show to them also important. You fonts must be able to be read by others, it should not be too small or too large. It should be just right for standard resolutions.

     Check your lookup using other browsers if possible to ensure that your lookup layout doesn’t jumble up or else, this can guarantee your submission to be rejected. Broken images are also be a big no-no. Choose suitable image hosting to upload your image. Your image size should been within the resolution of your lookup. Tinkered around with the height, width, padding and margins attributes to have cleaner and well order lookup.

     Also, don’t overcrowd your background with characters or small images. Even I will have headache trying to navigate around your lookup. Another reminder, please don’t use fonts with glaringly bright yellow or green color. That color will much likely make other’s eyes blind like a korbat. No blinking font either. And last but not least, when you’re using image as your border, please make it less clutter-ish. My eyes keep seeing stars.

     4. Show off your information and shield badge

     One of the generic rules in submitting your lookup for spotlight, all your information should be visible. You can resize the text to your heart content just keep in mind that people should be able to read them like size ‘10pt Verdana’. Even the shield can be change into something more attractive however, it should not be used to camouflage your true account age. You can use picture to replace them but the account age should not be included in any part of the picture. Too make it even simpler, you can just remove the shield. My advice, keep them. Take pride in your account age because it shows your level of commitments in spending times with Neopets. Be proud my fellow Neopian.

     5. Don’t dump all about yourself on your lookup

     If you want to share something about yourself, make a portfolio. It will be more immaculate and organize compared to writing them on your lookup. People want to see what you have in your lookup and read a tad bit about yourself, not a whole essay that need for them to scroll through to reach the bottom page. Keep about yourself section to a minimum, even better if you just don’t include them at all. Make your own decisions, no one will judge you, you’re free to do anything as long as it doesn’t broke the rules stated. Besides, if you really want to write about you section with lengthy introduction, scroll boxes is your new best friend to make them look squeaky clean.

     6. The importance of navigation links

     I have 50/50 love and hate relationship with this. You can add them just like others do or you can just remove them and replace it with ‘back to neo’ button. In case you want to remove the header part, you definitely need to replace them with something else. Sometimes in my lookup, I didn’t even put navigation button because of reasons or I’m just too lazy and completely forgot about them. Oopsy daisy.

     7. Good things comes to those who wait.

     Be patience when you’re waiting for a mail reply from the Neopets User Lookup Judging Team of DOOM; wow that sure is mouthful. It can be weeks before you can hear from them, just like the fun facts stated on the submission page, there are hundreds of other entries that they need to go through. If you want to hear from them sooner, you can enter your lookup submission for specific celebration day such as Mynci’s Day; whereas you can submit a lookup with inspiration from Mynci Beach Volleyball or anything Mynci related. After you feel all fine and dandy, submit them and please for the love of Fyora, don’t resubmit your entry because it will move it to the end of the line. Just keep in mind that you will definitely make into the list and will be notify soon.

     In conclusion, if you want to try for user spotlight trophy, understand the rules, CSS and HTML first. Though it’s not compulsory in understanding all the terms of CSS and HTML, however, it may help you to navigate yourself easier in building your own coding. Don’t enter a premade lookup and claim it as yours. Come out with new design and idea for your lookup that described yourself. Play with colors, margin attributes, CSS and HTML. Be original and show your creativity. You can even use your own artwork as a template. I have seen people who got really creative with their lookup. If your entry got rejected, don’t give up. Take that as lesson for you to improve better and take it to much higher level. Just know that, at the end of the day, all your hard work will be paid off. Looking back, you will realize that your first lookup submission is really cringe worthy, at least mine is and I misplaced my background image.

     Good luck with your quest in obtaining this nifty trophy or trophies (someone already won her 20x user spotlight trophies, that’s incredible).

     P/s I’m nowhere near to an expert in coding thus what I said could possibly contradict with other people opinions and views. All I want to do is sharing my own two cents in how to enter the lookup spotlight based on my own experience, giving some tips that I think can be uses as consideration before diving more in depth about it. My own interpretations regarding others tremendous works in giving us the best lookup are also included.