TI cart labels

[+OLD CS1]

I have been obsessing over the whole label and manual measurements and coloring and have found that, holy carp, TI was not very consistent. Some manuals have a pretty much navy blue top stripe (Sneggit) while others (Star Trek) are purple-ish. As well, these respectively have an outline and solid TI logo. But it does not stop there. In the 30 new-style manuals I have, no two were exactly alike in color and measurement.

Now, the labels. Again, TI seemed fairly consistent in its inconsistency. Of the four labels I measured I found two to be 3 5/8 x 9/16 inch, one 3 9/16 x 1/2, and one 3 19/32 x 17/32. The ratio was pretty consistent there, though. TI was very consistent about the logo placement and the dividing line, the latter being 9/16 from the left edge, the logo being 9/32 square. On a 9/16 tall label, the logo sits 4/32 from the top and left edge of the label, and 5/32 from the dividing line and bottom edge of the label. Text is roughly centered on the logo, with the top of text at 5/32 from the top, bottom sitting 10/32 (5/16) from the top and about 3/16 from the bottom, and sitting 1/8 from the dividing line.

All that said, I am certainly not trying to insist that labels follow any particular standard, just that comparing mine against TI's started me down a trail which I had to follow to the end.

Edited October 1, 2014 by OLD CS1

[Gazoo]

My standards are pretty simple. "Does it look good?" And I 'm partial to the TI orange and white on black labels. As long as they fit fairly well and are pleasing to the eye, I'm happy.

 

The vinyl labels I've gotten from stickeryou.com look quite good. I ordered a page each of all the 512k cart (6 of them) labels and another page of the XB v2.7 Suite labels.

 

They just shipped, so I'll have them in a few days.

 

Gazoo

[+OLD CS1]

My standards are pretty simple. "Does it look good?" And I 'm partial to the TI orange and white on black labels. As long as they fit fairly well and are pleasing to the eye, I'm happy.

 

Word, dawg.

 

I am trying to get my labels to resize properly in Sticker You's interface. I will probably order a batch of what I think looks right to see how they actually come out. Really wish I could do this myself and save me money and time. I feel like I am sending a stack of punch cards out to be batched that look right, but in two days the high priests will return them and a print-out to tell me that I screwed it all up with some mundane detail. Thank $_DIETY I missed out on those days.

Edited October 7, 2014 by OLD CS1

[Gazoo]

The two things I learned the hard way were to make the image brighter than you want the label to come out, and to make sure your border overlaps the black dotted line.

My first batch was too dark and my 2nd batch had a white strip around the edges. $26 down the tubes.

 

Gazoo

[+OLD CS1]

TI Old-style Manual Template v1.2
by "OLD CS1" at AtariAge

This is a cover template for the old-style cartridge manual for the TI-99/4 and
4A Home Computers. In its current format this template is not appropriate for
specialized manuals like the Mini Memory or TI Extended BASIC, though it could
be modified. I hope you will find this template useful in making your own
or re-creating an older one.


To change the background color, simply make the appropriate layer visible. I
believe I captured all of the possible colors: light blue, dark blue, green,
purple, pink, amber, orange, and peach. If I find more I will update the
template.

Customizeable sections below are important to the manual.

Game title line 1, optionally 2:
Franklin Gothic Heavy, 130px, italicized
The title is right-aligned with the "COMMAND MODULE" text.
If two lines are used, the longer line is right-aligned, and
the shorter line is left-aligned with the other line.

SOLID STATE SOFTWARE/COMMAND MODULE:
This layer is separated from the black stripe so you may use different text
here if desired.

Game play synopsis:
Franklin Gothic Demi, 36px, -4.0 line spacing
The game play synosis text is left-aligned with, and should not exceed
the right side of, the game screen cartoon. It should not be more than
four lines long.

Game screen cartoon:
This area is a drawn representation of the game and is contained
within the black border.


Examples of these old-style manuals are found all over the Internet. Special
thanks to everyone at the AtariAge TI-99/4A Programming forum
(http://ti99.atariage.com), and dphirschler and Lee Stewart for ponying up
the TI logo in GIMP and vector format when requested.


A few noteables:

0) This requires The GIMP: GNU Image Manipulation Program. It's a great program
and available at http://gimp.org

(or you can use the Ninite installer.)

1) Yes, I purposefully left out the trademark symbol in the SOLID STATE SOFTWARE
layer.

2) I flattened out the layers which should not be modified to help prevent the text
from being modified.

3) I am not certain if the fonts will be included in the XCF. If not, the ones I
used here are available on the Internet for free (not all of the Franklin Gothic
styles are free, though, so choose wisely.)

4) I am working on manual backs separately, and I do have a template for the new-style
manuals. The problem with the new-style, however, is they varied widely, so a single
template may not always be appropriate.

5) I am aware that the stripes are not all uniform in size. Neither were any of the
originals (probably due to printing irregularities, but I do not see it necessary to
make a recreation perfect.)

6) I would rather not have modified copies of this template distributed. If you think
something should be changed, let me know and I will try to accomodate. If you think you
can do better, you are welcome to use this as a foundation and distribute your own.


v1.1: Neglected to crop the game screen cartoon layer, making it impossible to properly
align stuff. Fixed.

 

v1.2: Fixed the game play synopsis so it is actually editable, fixed the box size. Added the optional lower synopsis.

old_style_manual_cover_template_v1.2.zip

Edited November 1, 2014 by OLD CS1

[+OLD CS1]

Had to make a quick update to the template.

 

Also, I noticed when I made the thumbnail that this does not seem to resize well (one of the shaded stripes moves.) I will probably not fix this as the template is meant for printing, and in its current format at 300dpi it prints well.

Edited October 7, 2014 by OLD CS1

[+Ksarul]

Thanks, this is a very useful template!

[+OLD CS1]

Updated my manual cover template to fix a problem with the game play synopsis box so it can be edited and add the optional lower game play synopsis text box. The 30k jump in size is because I used Windows' compressed folders rather than 7-Zip to create the archive. Meh.

[Gazoo]

 

I was playing around with a suggestion regarding cart labels made by an unnamed person at the Faire and came up with this.

 

I can't decide whether it's ugly or cool. I'm leaning towards ugly. If it's decided that it's cool, I'll give credit to the suggester.

 

Gazoo

Edited November 23, 2014 by Gazoo

[+Ksarul]

I like it--but in following the update on an older theme, wouldn't it be more appropriate as a blue square on the left? Red was for the games. Once I get the finished labels back, I'll have a bunch of additional files to add to this thread as well (I want to make sure they come out right before uploading them).

[am1933]

 

I was playing around with a suggestion regarding cart labels made by an unnamed person at the Faire and came up with this.

 

I can't decide whether it's ugly or cool. I'm leaning towards ugly. If it's decided that it's cool, I'll give credit to the suggester.

 

Gazoo

Possibly change the red background to orange so that it matches the text, the red looks a little disjointed from the rest of the label (I actually think it would look better with a continuous black background complete with the ti logo that you have used), regardless-what you have already done still looks good.

[Gazoo]

 

Well, I think this is just a little less ugly, but that's me.

 

Gazoo

 

 

 

[Gazoo]

 

If I had to use alternate colors, I think this is the least offensive.

 

Gazoo

 

[+Ksarul]

I actually like the mutant orange one a lot, Gazoo. Switch to a solid black version of the solid white TI Emblem you had on the red label and it would be outstanding. . .

[Gazoo]

I actually like the mutant orange one a lot, Gazoo. Switch to a solid black version of the solid white TI Emblem you had on the red label and it would be outstanding. . .

 

If I had something easier to work with other than Paint, it might be a little easier. That last one was real labor intensive.

 

Gazoo

[dphirschler]

I don't like the different solid color on the left side (behind the TI logo), no matter the color. Looks weird to me.

 

Darryl

[+Ksarul]

But it is beautiful--the muted orange is a perfect counterpoint to the TI black. Thank you for doing it--I may have to make a page of these just to see what they end up looking like!

[+mizapf]

An idea that just came to my mind: What about designing a new logo?

 

It's not because I'd be concerned about the logo being a property of TI; I guess TI just won't care whether we continue to use their logo. But this seems to me like a new era. Maybe there could be a kind of modernized, stylized symbol, to represent the new generation.

 

Just a thought. I'm not so good at designing anyway.

[+OLD CS1]

 

If I had something easier to work with other than Paint, it might be a little easier. That last one was real labor intensive.

 

GIMP. Seriously. I can make a color change on your graphic in literally no time.

 

 

But, really, using a better program it would be easier to eliminate, or at least mitigate, the anti-aliasing artifacts, too.

[Gazoo]

 

GIMP. Seriously. I can make a color change on your graphic in literally no time.

 

gazoo_xb27_green.png

gazoo_xb27_purple.png

 

But, really, using a better program it would be easier to eliminate, or at least mitigate, the anti-aliasing artifacts, too.

 

Can you turn the red in this one to the orange as in the text?

 

 

Thanks for the tip, I'll look for GIMP.

 

Gee, you're super!

 

Gazoo

[+Ksarul]

I like the purplish one too. . .

[+OLD CS1]

 

Can you turn the red in this one to the orange as in the text?

 

Thanks for the tip, I'll look for GIMP.

 

Gee, you're super!

 

Gazoo

 

Best quickie I can do with the anti-aliasing of the original. I might be able to do better with a BMP as it seems to save the JPG in pretty low quality.

 

[+Ksarul]

That is one beautiful label there--many thanks for taking it on, OLD CS1!!! I will definitely make some of these. . .

[Wildstar]

I like what is done so far. I will look into the labels set up for my own TI software.

[+OLD CS1]

That is one beautiful label there--many thanks for taking it on, OLD CS1!!! I will definitely make some of these. . .

 

Use this one, instead. Problem with the select-by-color and the anti-aliasing. This should be the fix.