I thought I'd walk you through some of the process of creating a banner for a site. It's not just about making a pretty picture, nor only the contextual message.
The bottom image was made first and I find it a bit more visually pleasing than the next, middle, iteration.
However, the middle collage has a much richer resonance with the blog's theme of advice for writers. It has details of manuscripts from Lewis Carroll, Charles Schultz, British and French letters, Shakespeare, Rowling, a poet unknown to me, a newspaper, e. e. cummings / Da Vinci, and Tolkien.
Finally, I tweaked the image and added Mark Twain's manuscript in the lower right. I like the result; though the first one still appeals to the eye, having the feel of a Kurt Schwitters with its good balance of negative space.
