I hope that at some point you will come to share my belief that the tools and the goal are intertwined. That the effects we seek must be understood or we just pointlessly purchase pretty pictures.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

My basic premise here is to try to show that the best item to use is not always the best item we own.
But an item that fits better is going to be better. While it is pleasing for a while to just put your favourite pieces together, it can be much more satisfying to devise and unleash a theme.

The showcases are inflexible areas so the goal is to show these sets of little boxes the way we want. Hijack the split second of focus - instead of seeing 6 images people will witness our overall effect.

This might be the best sequence to deploy them:

• Art - whether you use the showcase for the background or not.
  
• Badges - I will explain more later but for now let us take this on trust.
  
• Items Showcase(s) - Including the expandable area in the Items for Trade.

If you do not put a large showcase top and centre then the first thing the viewer sees is a whole load of showcases with individual items and can be too much, too many effects trying to work. By putting art showcase top and calmly extending the background across, you are creating an immediate, controlled impact. Then they scroll down. After that, you either have your audience or you don't.

So let us begin.

I am only going to mention one kind of art showcase - if you want to display actual art then skip this.

(Before you go: You might still want to capture the Avatar portion and modify it.)

Transparent Art Showcase - The background sprawling across the whole screen can be awe-inspiring.

Pick a background well - that may seem obvious but you want one that has interesting features right where your art showcase will go. A good defining image at centre left and centre right is helpful.

• Go to background in inventory, click view full size button, copy its hyperlink
  
• Visit https://steam.design site - paste background URL where indicated.
  
• Selecting download images (Run) creates a folder with 3 files - Middle, Right and Avatar
  
• Copy these files to somewhere of your choosing and rename them
  
• Sign into Steam through your browser not the regular icon.
  
• Go to Artwork & upload Middle image. Right click on the screen and select inspect element.
  
• This opens a white area - select Console and there is an arrow prompt. Paste this there:

document.getElementsByName("image_width")[0].value = 1000;document.getElementsByName("image_height")[0].value = 1;

• Press enter, close the white console area and complete upload of artwork.
  
• Repeat for the right hand strip.
  
• Select art showcase and put the 2 art pieces in their places. Avatar is optional.
  
• If Avatar section is bland, can you add a detail that does not detract from the overall effect?

You must have a title underneath the middle section so try to make it fit the background picture.

My profile sometimes uses Pyramid with title “Though I ride through the valley of Death...”
An alternate account has Rosewood titled “A Kiss from a Rose."
I have seen Mirai-chan at Arcades titled “I know how to turn you on.”

Having to use a title is being given lemons so make some lemonade.

I am not going to waste time saying what games the badges I show here are from - anyone is welcome to look through my badges but your efforts would be better spent looking for raw materials here:
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=891025787
A very good starting point but I want to discuss the effect each showcase is trying to achieve.

Let us begin with something pretty basic, Skulls. Everyone has one.

There are many different images of skulls but I tried to keep them similar and picked ones to face inwards towards the 2 Deadbreed ones to get a greater sense of linkage between the items.

Something a bit more thought-out, Chess:

2 similar badges on the outsides, king and queen in the centre (where they belong) and 2 boards.
Light images on one side, dark on the other. I have "better" chess badges but this works best.

Dr, Dr and Dredd:

An idea I will develop in a later chapter. The 2 Dr Who and Judge Dredd badges were placed directly above items from those games and the other 3 badges were picked for colour, shape and content.

Right, that was about to get intense. Back to some fun, Swordsmen:
It would need 2 special swordsmen added to stop my using those 2 swords with them. Before I got the last 2, I used 2 each of swords, shields and figures. Showcases evolve as you find more items. 4 of the 6 badges have auras so try to keep that kind of thing symmetrical. Notice the cold/warmth?

This took quite a bit of searching to find suitable badges. Friends:

This one is improving as I swap in better choices for some of the earlier line-up; while I would replace 2 more, even the metallic retro badge fits the theme: 5 people on each badge with mirrored patterns.
This started with the Marvel and ninjas pair giving a symmetrical element in a more varied showcase.

I am hoping that this one will surprise you after the lengths I had to go to for some of the others.

We all know these shields, we see them all the time. What I had come to recognise is that, since they were a generic low-effort template, they appeared on cheap badges used by level-up bots. But how to find some interesting examples? Easy, look for people with large collections of badges and then cross-reference any of this type in Exchange site to pick one for each colour of badge. I had thought that this would be a fairly quick exercise but it took a few hours to trawl through collections and decide which were most usable. I think the results were worth it - not as my permanent showcase but to show that you really can make a nice effect with cheap badges, it is about overall presentation and linkage.

In something like a badge showcase, you do not have the flexibility to manipulate the overall look like you can in an open art field or an item showcase so do what you can with symmetry of colour and shapes. Composition is more important than a standalone effect. It may seem like cheating to use regular and foil badges from the same game but they still have to fit a greater theme.

Symmetry is not some absolute rule but I do see it as doing what I can with what I have in front of me.

I am not going to dwell on more configurations of badges in this section; I wanted to talk about how we place them, picking for effect and theme rather than being the best looking. While grouping similar badges in sets is fairly effective, how we present them also matters. It is about the whole showcase.

Having said all that, if all your profile or showcase needs is one really nice looking badge, the best range to browse is probably the Dark Parables games. Very glitzy and impressive. I like The Room series a little more though you could mix the two sets for a collection of odd relics.

We are not done with badges, but first there are some things we need to discuss.

The effects that follow in the next two chapters may not work perfectly if you are not using the art showcase as they rely on visual link-ups. There is a small section of the Steam Skin that your background can show through between showcases if it is very light.

A bold statement: there is only one item showcase, not 2. But before that, a short rant:

What is the items for trade thing for? 6 slots to display the items you most want to trade? Roll the logic of that one around for a second. Sure, it has an expandable part that you can list all the particular deals you do and don't like. Shrug. When I want to trade I post in the discussion thread what my parameters are. Or I open trade and make an offer to someone whose proposal is right there.

So let me play with that first statement a little more. Supposedly you get 2 item Showcases from levelling up and then place one after another to display items you love and items you want rid of, in almost identical boxes? No, no, that artificial barrier disappears the second you select and place them.

Section 1: The 10 item slots of the Item Showcase glued by visual effect to the 6 slots of the Items for Trade Showcase. Now we have 16 slots, a far more impressive range of possibilities.

Section 2: A chunk of white lettering going on about your market transactions. Really, Steam?
But they just did us a favour. It split the trade section into 2.

Section 3: The massive area below the 16 structured items can be your canvas for a wild display of emoticon or ASCII art, a commanding diatribe, a manifesto for your life goals, anything that fits you.

Hold on, (you say) You are right of course. Steam has bewitched me with its old-fashioned thinking and terms. I now see that I was using them all wrong. But will others see this?

You betcha, son. That is why this section is here.


This is just pure and simple Dr Who[en.wikipedia.org] obsession. But break it down and let us see how this works visually. The effect of the backgrounds and icons, while not particularly impressive in themselves, is quite marked. We have one overall pattern rather than 16 items. And because that pattern bridges rows 2 and 3, the irrelevant border gives the impact of being gone.

What sorcery is this? It is about shapes and repetition. Rectangles and circles here, sure but how they are arranged is the key to this one working. It will vary with other items. Part of why it is so good with a theme from one game is that most sets have 5 backgrounds and 5 icons. Generating a display line at row 1 and an alternating part at rows 2-3 (10 slots) is simple.

When I started using the 2 together as one area, I was dumbly putting 16 semi-matching items in it and for a short while, I was pleased. Wasn't that nice, I had 16 boosters with their neat blue line design at the centre or 16 foil or normal cards, lined up like toy soldiers. Except it did not work. It just became a big blob of the same stuff and you do not look at the iconic icons. Have a different pattern though and you start to create an effect that draws the eye to items or away from others.


So this is a different layout but what it does is just as good. In this case you are linking rows 1 and 3 to create a sandwich effect. The icons in the middle serve to deliver space for the eye to process and the rows of cards (whether they be foil, normal or both) work together. To walk through what is going on, the first 4 cards on row 1 link with items on row 2 by their own visual magnets but then card 5 runs the 2 posers at 4 and 6 together. Row 3, being from one set, shares a border trim colour and art style.

This sandwich effect really is pretty easy to achieve using a variety of items top row and bottom row of the 2 showcases but one type I feel is worth mentioning is the items you get from games, that appear as images within a defined box. It will not work as well to run all 16 slots with those items as the boxes round them leave a gap underneath the second row, re-emphasising the break in the 2 showcases.

This is at the same time better and worse than other items. The outlined boxes are very similar and this allows variety in what they hold but the gap (which is visible normally but we rely on first impressions to build the effect) is clearer. Most emoticons fit well on the second row, as do a number of game items - here are safes from Payday 2 and crates from Player Unknown Battlegrounds. The top row are CSGO items called chess king - graffiti of some sort, never played the game but the little images were only about £0.03 each so whatever haha. The bottom row is dice from Armello. I have both rows as rainbows just to give an idea of the range of choice.

If you look at the section on the main Community Market page, just below the searchfield, you will see a list of games. Those are the ones with actual items apart from Emoticons, backgrounds, cards and boosters and some are amazing. Euro Truck simulator has little items for your dashboard and pennants. Armello also has pennants and some fancier flags and chests. Many games have crates, guns, clothing. Most of them come in the above little boxes but not all.


You might consider Flags & items from the Monstercakes "sticker" range - while fairly crude images, they cater for countries not covered by regular emoticon flags. There are a few ranges of letters in there that, while not usable as emoticons, fit here fine and are a lot cheaper than regular ones. Although I have used the Halloween set, I would recommend the Balloon Letters in general.


Or use Lethis icons to make phrases like Settle This Issue, using :Ultra: & my favourite golem.


Badges above the items ones lets the chunks of data give a framing effect. Emotes to break up cards visually, symmetry to link the 2 showcases, use of colour where possible, effect of grouped boosters.
Boosters group nicely but have tiny pictures. Showcases must be striking at a glance and up close.

Jacks and Quinz.

A little humour but I wanted to show how the non-foil cards are better with lighter images. The blue does not stand out as well from the Steam skin but it can offer contrast.


Pairings to create a pattern without going for a sandwich effect, the use of colour and composition.
It demonstrates my point from the introduction in this guide - while this one shows my 3 best items (Dalek, Tardis, Dredd cards) they are not the best parts of this. I like the middle row - the way they link together as if the Bard card is singing to Goku and the colour of his hair is reflected in the note emote.

Am I being crazy here or does the data chunk on the right continue the emoticon pattern?

Most of the linked effect can be had just by sticking the showcases together in your mind and on the page. Get over the associations of what you want to trade and what you do not and people will pretty much realise you are showboating not selling when they see the continuous field of items.

Okay, are we sitting comfortably? The next step is entirely logical but it took me a while to reach it.
In fact, it is so obvious that you may think "well, duh, of course."

Then this replaced the results of many hours of searching and trading:
You may be best clicking into the image for full screen effect.

The badges theme is Mounted Heads. I am still missing one badge but planning can be long-term. The showcases may not be designed to have all 3 link up together but your brain and eyes work in cooperation and the viewer will see the effects you create and appreciate them. Clothing is from the fashion House of Player Unknown Battlegrounds but I had to use shoes from Don't Starve Together.
I was caught flat-footed when I realised the shoes I wanted to use were not tradable.

What is immediately different is with this setup I have abandoned the art showcase. The point about wanting one large initial image to draw the eye still applies but I am attempting to get them to focus on the 3 combined showcases as one. Time will tell how well that works.

Other similar effects might include using Path of Exile heads with Salien bodies and some boxed shoes to at least use the sandwich effect for item showcases but given that we know more can be done, it does not feel like enough now. Rust items might be interesting.

The combination of badge and 2 item showcases can create a 22 slot diorama.

Mostly something like this will come together after making a themed badge showcase then elements add in. Unless you are a savant, don't worry about thinking up some grand scheme straight away. These are some basic ideas I wanted to try but I am sure a lot more can be done.


Dragons & Treasure - Although I have not used the art showcase, I have used that site to capture the avatar portion which I have then added the "bobo" dragon badge to, flipped so it faces left and crudely (I suck at art) used Paint to add some flames and edit the imperfections round the dragon.


First build of this had a stage constructed on second row and dancers in the bottom row. Second build brought in the cards but used a microphone card in centre. This third build works a little better. If you disagree speak to my security guys. The melting of the card border into the Steam background makes nonfoil better than foil. In a diorama the card image fitting in well is the important part.


If we had 64 squares then great but we have 22 with restrictions. You could reflect a small part, like a checkmate in a corner. You could substitute in things like Dark Knight. I went for simple here, to show that the use of the squares was the way to gain most immediate "oh chessboard" impact.


Version 2, I did a market search for Space and got some cheap backgrounds to repeat through in place of the "starsky" emote and much nicer looking. There will be better ways to do this out there, I wanted to show the effect of the space across the piece, how the planets jump out at us.

That brings me really to my final point. You may like the kind of things you would see in a Halloween setup and know the market for them - a cemetery may be easy ground for you. There are sailing ships out there, in badges and emoticons, likewise tanks and cars. There are so many themes in badges and emotes that finding what works well across the 22 slots is not what I am setting out to do. It would make my day if people started to link profiles featuring eccentric stuff like cakeshops or farms.

The concept is what I am throwing at you. The ideas will be yours.

I had thought I was done with this guide and this section but things happen and you gain a little perspective. I had spent so long dotting between setups while I waited for cards, badges or emotes to complete them that I had failed to grasp one thing - that whole period of limbo is worth addressing. Sure, I have said that showcases evolve as you get more cards but that was under the given that you make the best you can (its done at that point) then refine it later.

I have been months trying to complete a fable fortune badge, even cheated to paste it in to show the showcase I am aiming for in this chapter. Finally I have to stop dotting about and make a medium-term solution. The set up that follows is not quite Fable but it is inspired and dominated by it.
So although I am using the sandwich effect with the 2 rows of matching cards, for once it is not to blur away the trading section but to emphasise the middle row and my hunt for the missing card. The avatar I switched to is just a cropped jpeg from the first Fable game, the relic badges are mostly from The Room games and seemed to fit with the Fable 2 story of the boy who finds a relic and is taken to the castle. The castle background is Victor Vran which should explain why I am using Victor Von Doom as the featured badge rather than the obvious Reaver from Fable - the top hats would have been too much to use together and this way we have the double nod to the Latvian castle owner and his name. It not being the desired end does not mean I can't aim for some satisfaction from it.

I keep a few expensive backgrounds but this one, like most of the best, is £0.04. If you disregarded badges, you could make a pretty dazzling profile page for about £1. Most of us have a few badges to start with though so like I say - start with what you have already and see what ideas they give.

The Art Showcase may be an exploit but it is one that benefits Steam - it shows backgrounds at their best. I do not believe this is true of imported animations. They get dull fast.

There is still stuff we can do.The showcases that do not use bought items allow more self-expression.

Your profile is all about projecting who you are. In a weird little way, I am proud of an alternate account that simply features a few poems. But I am also a magpie so no moral high ground for me.

Review Showcase

Why not write a haiku about a game you love? A short, beautiful expression of the way it made you feel. Feature that. Beats a list of whether graphics were optimising the full power of unreal engine or not and the best use of lighting. Technical reviews have their place but it ain't on my profile.


I use a short piece from the perspective of a monster for my review showcase: https://steamproxy.net/profiles/76561198142366455/recommended/636100.

As long as the tone fits the game, try doing it differently. There are many kinds of writing. The only rule should be no spoilers.

Both Workshop Showcases

People will be more impressed at a funny stickman picture you made than a 5 panel gif. Shine.

Now, if only there was some cheap game that allowed you to make workshop items using pictures of basically anything... Enter Monstercakes. Once I started using that one, I had no need to look further.
A buck for a game that lets me use 2 showcases to show off little pictograms I made? Sign me up.


Workshop items do require you to jump through a few legal hoops the first time, declarations that if they make you money you do not break international tax laws. Uhu. That nonsense aside, it's another couple of areas for decorating. That do not even need items in them.

Of course you can make other showcases thematic:

A better choice visually would be Superheroes but there are only 4 Dr Who games on Steam so that fitted an easy mockup. I only own 2 of those games at moment but since when did that stop anyone?

Achievement showcases

For your "Rarest" one, if you use it, all I can say is git gud.

The other one, though - why would we make it about our mightiest achievements? Okay, I did for a while - getting maxed this or most difficult that on my favourite games but really, the rarest one will do for that kind of thing. This is a free chance to show a little ankle, so to speak. What I am using is this:

Some patriotism, along with the things I like - cats, chess, dragons, Dr Who and Judge Dredd. I was aiming for balancing the colours symmetrically at first then it became clear I was going to be using a red, a blue and a yellow so the rainbow was the obvious next step.

This curator has compiled a list of games with achievement letters for showcases BUT NOTE Steam has made most of the list useless by labelling them limited profile use. Some still have usable letters as they are accredited Steam games so have a dig around. If anyone filters the list then I will link it.

I will mention Devade and Zup here as they have usable letter achievements though not that pretty and also give some (again not pretty) emoticon letters. Quite fun for short-burst gaming too.

Something else I did just come across was that there are about half a dozen games that are clones of each other where the dev allowed people to submit images for achievements so each low cost game has thousands of achieves but some pictures are very individual. Now the dev seems to have moved on from keeping the requests fulfilled but what has been created is possibly a useful resource bank to pick out one. I mention this as although most of them are ridiculous ego-stroking, there are some useful flags and suchlike in there. I did find 2 Saltires (Scotland flags) but they were both ones that people had pasted their own stuff over - yeah great way to help the community but I guess it was your 50 cents on sale so do what you want... I probably should not advertise a game that uses those tactics so you can google for custom achievements Steam.

Your Avatar

This is a difficult one generally but it is worth spending the time. There are three things to consider here:

• Your avatar shows wherever you are as a tiny image so strong colours and a clear image helps.
  
• It shows on your background as a large image but not dominant.
  
• It is a picture file we can modify at will - time to crack open MS Paint or whatever we have.

So we need it to be emphatic on our travelling avatar and blend with our background.

If you use the transparent art showcase effect then a cut-section of your background may be blank sky. Rather than dropping that part to feature your preferred small image and losing some of the effect, add an image of a dragon or a helicopter, a balloon or an eagle. This then becomes a distinct image on your avatar or a small detail on your profile and lets you keep the sky part for the open showcase.

If you are just using a regular background (sides only) then try to pick something that is in keeping with it in colour, design, content. It is not hard to cobble somethign together with clip art and modify it in Paint where necessary.

As I write this the background I am using is a black and white image of a lady and her dragon so the avatar I have gone with was gotten by googling black and white dragon. Pretty simple. I had to add a caption to make it a square but that was the only work for me to do.


The Comments section on your profile

Guys, this is your area. Who cares if 300 people give you +1 Rep for being a trader or a hunter-killer? Clear out that deadwood and make it about captions, jokes, anecdotes and most of all emoticon art; Ascii art even. (Just not those idiots who template a picture of a heart made up of hearts and then post it 8 times in a row.) Bawdy messages, propositions of an earnest nature, pleas for mercy, who knows. THIS SECTION IS THE COMMUNITY AT WORK. Eventually, I just stopped other people commenting - anyone that wants to discuss trade can do it in my trade threads, to discuss a concept they can use guide comments, if they are friends they can chat. It was free real estate to post more stuff I wanted.

What I have tried to do with this guide is not say "here do that by doing this" - it is to encourage you to think what you want to make and show how I feel that can best be achieved.
It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it....

I have used the word uniform to describe continuity and symmetry. I would like to qualify that now by saying "Sure, wear a uniform but have your hat at a jaunty angle."

I hope as well that it is clear that the commercial value of an item is meaningless here. I love images that form themes and will happily use most of my slots for a cheap item (like starsky or miniatures) if it contributes to a greater overall effect. Likewise, foil cards are great for making a dark image stand out but if you are going to work badges, backgrounds, emoticons and cards together then nonfoil will fit better (see Hentai Zombie, Jacks & Quinz and Rockstar showcases as examples.)

Something I am surprised not to see more often is the use of Unicode symbols - they can jazz up parts of the profile not normally reached by emotes. I am not clear if we are allowed to include them in profile names but it seems possible too. For example: 🐉 where you cannot use a regular emote in a guide.

Some of my best ideas for showcases have come from trawling random collections till I notice a badge or 2 that connect with something else. Knowledge is power.

You get 17 showcases if you use Salien, 2x workshop and 2x guides. At level 170 that is it, no more showcases to be gained. So cool your jets. Do not rush to 170 unless you can use them and why bother beyond it? Avoid level up services completely. There are lists of which badges are cheapest[www.steamcardexchange.net]; pick ones you like. The bot might buy badges you would not be proud of and too often people overshoot a badge image they'd later want as the service goes to level 5. Most I have are picked - I like the images on them and that means more tools to make more themes for showcases. "I am the master of my fate, I am the Captain of my soul."

(For examples of much better badges at lower levels - Path of Exile[www.steamcardexchange.net]level 2, Deadlight[www.steamcardexchange.net]level 1 and Injustice 2[www.steamcardexchange.net]level 2; others may be debatable but if I had taken all my badges to level 5 I would not have my dragon, swordsmen or chess showcases. I recently idled about 700 cards out of games in my library. From those there were 14 badges I wanted to make, one of them to level 5. The rest was dross to bulk trade away.

I have not tackled all the showcases. Some people like all showcases to be working at effects for them but you get to the point where you might just be overcooking it. I like to keep some showcases just for saying Man, I am proud of those achievements. It comes down to showing what you like.

Some of it just never works out. I tried to create an effect of a cat pouncing on a mouse using backgrounds as items. Oh well.


But the total opposite can be true - I was buying tank badges for a showcase when war broke out accidentally before they reached it:

Clearly up till now, I wasn't trying hard enough.

I do not view this guide as standing alone. The first in this series was for art resources but alongside it I started to use emoticon letters as I tried to make images and the notions grew about themes in those letters and use of colour. The rest of the profile evolved and the showcases became more considered in their layouts; we were not in Kansas any more. But all through this, I was having adventures of discovery in the marketplace and trade channels. So the 4 subjects of these guides were not only being learned at the same time, they were being applied at the same time. As such, I have to present them together. 3 may be of no use to you, who knows. Maybe you see the same necessary link between them. Personally, it seems irresponsible to me to put guides out about buying stuff and not share some observations about the killing fields where those items are.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1814025223
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1840245914
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1859295262

Last of all is the 5th in the series of 4. It started to form as the last few were in progress and built to the point it demanded to be made - something stupid, something fun.

It took some things from here that do not deserve much serious treatment, to be stupid with them.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1869876954

Are you comfortable linking your profile? Just say in comments and I can add it in this section.
If this space stays empty then that is fine too but anyone who has made it this far is looking for ideas.
It is not egotistical to share, nor any crime to take pride in what you do.