Time For a Change

No, this isn't a post about Obama.

Well, I've decided the time is over due to change the banner at the top of this blog. But I thought I should pay homage to the old banner. After all, the old banner is what inspired the pipe as the J-Dubb's Theatre icon. If it weren't for the old banner; there would be no marketable Nike-esque logo, and no iconic pipe to give J-Dubb's Theatre videos their own signature.

I decided to create the old banner for my blog, back in 2006, as a play on the whole J-Dubb's Theatre/Masterpiece Theatre parody. In fact, the J-Dubb's Theatre title in this picture was actually an image I found that said "Masterpiece Theatre". So I edited out the "Masterpiece" and replaced it with "J-Dubb's" in as similar a font as I could find.

I put on a coat and borrowed my dad's pipe that he hadn't used for years. I didn't have a sport coat at the time, so I put on my old Airforce service dress coat and edited out the Senior Airman stripes. I then Photoshopped myself into a chair and Photoshopped the chair into a den with a fireplace. Here is the original blog post from the event.

Sometime later on, I decided to replace the little arrow thingies, which were to the left of my post titles, with the little green pipe icon as you see it now. That was the beginning of the pipe as the J-Dubb's Theatre icon. After I started making videos, I asked my dad if I could just keep the frakin pipe.

I'm also holding a copy of Homer's "The Odyssey and the Iliad" in that picture. The book is less iconic than the pipe, but I have alluded to it now and then in my videos, such as in "The Network," when I hit myself over the head... erm... when I hit Belphegor over the head with it. I think it's a bit confusing though, as it looks like I'm holding a Bible. I was always concerned that people might either take this for a religious blog, or a religious satire blog, which it is neither.

I also created the old banner before I studied graphic design. It was a fun picture, but I always felt it made the overall design of the blog too busy. The new one is nice and simple and plays into the visual hierarchy a lot better. Plus, this one has the rounded corners which mirror the rest of the blog.

Also, I thought it would be fitting, in the new banner, to have the pipe resting on my keyboard with my modem in the background, seeing how J-Dubb's Theatre is an internet based... whatever it is.

I want to keep the image from the old banner around somewhere, though. Maybe I'll do an "About" page for this blog and use that image. After all, the videos; "J-Dubb's Theatre", and "Choose J-Dubb's Theatre" both have the live action recreations of that image, which don't necessarily make sense without that image to make reference to.