Avatars, you hate em, right? Well, you are stuck with using an Avatar whether you like it or not! Why, you may ask? If you don’t upload your own unique Avatar, then you are defaulted to that ugly colored circle that contains the first letter/digit of your member name.
How to choose an Avatar:
First of all don’t fret too much over this. You can use your own picture (as some do) if you don’t have privacy concerns. Or just choose anything that is graphically appealing. Silhouettes or images without backgrounds look especially nice. Round images work well because your image will get cropped into a circle. If you end up not liking your Avatar, then it’s very simple to upload another and Voila, all of your old posts are switched over to your new Avatar. It’s like changing your Hat. Other ppl will quickly get used to your new Hat.
Go to OpenClipArt and do some searches of their vast library of free stuff. Or, do a Google search on “Free Avatar” for some ideas. I’m not going to discuss property rights but be careful if you are a business.
Here’s how to upload an Avatar:
It’s easy. Login first. Click your current Avatar in the upper right corner of your display and then click the preferences/ so you can scroll down to edit your Profile Picture by clicking that edit-pencil next to your Profile Picture. Don’t forget to Save Changes after you upload your Avatar.
Here’s an example of how to make a custom avatar:
Started by downloading this image from pexels.com to my computer. Note that the CC0 License = ✓ Free for personal and commercial use and ✓ No attribution required. Tip: Click through small icon images to get to the largest image size.
Edit/Simple Crop Tool/Select Circle (drag and/or use handles)/Click Crop Image button
Save the result back to my computer (right mouse click/Save Image As)
Voila! It’s easy, eh? Oh, don’t worry about the checker-board background after you crop. That just means no background. Don’t worry about the large size. It will be shrunk when you load your avatar. You could do more customization; maybe using the Text tool to add your initials or similar?
Oh, that’s Glossy Circles. If you have PhotoShop experience you can make Glossy Circles.
If you don’t have PhotoShop knowledge you can start with Glossy circles from OpenClipArt. They look nice and then you can use a Free Online Editing tool to add your unique text. I use Right-Button-Click Save-Image-As after adding text using the Online Editing tool (PiZap) to edit the glossy circle.
I just noticed that it looks like the admin made the little headphone icon a little bigger the way he had it originally and where it had covered my little 10. Then I moved the 10 shortly after he very nicely made it smaller a while ago and now he has made it bigger.
So for avatar creators…you kinda wanna tend your internal shape to be more towards the upper left. (until such time as more little icons get added ) ahem…MDB
Oh a short time ago I noticed that the size of Avatars increased. Maybe at the time of that change the small Audiogram-Available/Headphone icon took up more than its share of the image.
oh…and…I see that the headphone shows up on the pop-up screen too. That’s also a change. Changes are afoot.
I can’t say as I noticed the avatar getting any larger though.
I tripped over one other thing today too. I seem to recall a moment where the flag was next to the username. Then back down below it. Or I was hallucinating again
Some of our styling got wiped when we installed the update earlier and I didn’t notice. Thanks for alerting me. I did my best to recreate the styling on the “avatar flair” headphone icon
Oh yeah, the tiny “avatar flair” headphone icon that gets tacked onto the bottom right of your avatar meaning your audiogram is available for viewing. When I stare at it it keeps morphing from a palm tree (sometimes a mushroom) and then I can see the headphones. Hahaha.
so you can scroll down to edit your Profile Picture by clicking that edit-pencil next to your Profile Picture. Don’t forget to Save Changes after you upload your Avatar.
) ahem…MDB 
