I was wondering if TMS has a "standard" 468 x 60 banner for advertising? If not, why not start a competition to create one? (excuse my ignorance if this has been suggested before) Synozeer could judge what he considers the most worthy banner and maybe the prize could a placement of the winner's banner for their mud or site in the paid banner rotation for a certain period on TMS? It might need conditions on what the banner can consist of, e.g. file size, flash, gif, jpg, etc. but Synozeer could set those conditions.

If TMS does have a 468 x 60 banner, where can it be found?

Ahhh... there it is! Ya know I never even noticed those other options were there at login until you mentioned it. Just goes to show how observant I am... NOT! Curious as to why you make it only members can advertise your banners, or effectively doing so by requiring a username to be entered. I know you want to show the correct voting syntax, but you could have done it like this....

<a href="http://www.topmudsites.com/cgi-bin/topmuds/rankem.cgi?id=(your username)" target="_blank">
<img src="(location of graphic on your server)/vote_mud.gif"></a>

Looking at my site I have just noticed I have linked directly to the voting button graphic on your server. Hmmm... not sure why I did that but I better fix it.

Anyways, thanks for answering my question, when I get a chance I'll see about putting together some banners for you to look at.

I might give it a try. Any preferences as to colour or theme?

What tools you all use for making banners?

Pretty much any graphics program will do. Photoshop is probably best for this kind of work, but it's also quite expensive, and you can get the job done with a free program like .

Heck, I even know a girl who makes art using nothing but MS Paint and Word.

As Angie has said, pretty much any graphics program will do the job. In this case I used Paintshop Pro, it probably doesn't have all the features of Photoshop but it's not far behind, (and it's a lot cheaper to buy), I use it because it's what I'm used to and therefore I find it easier to use.

If you are looking for a good free graphics program you will find Gimp hard to beat. I think the main advantage of the commercial programs and Gimp over the other free ones is the ability to use filters for your various effects.