# Square or circular avatars, which ones do you prefer?



## BronzeHeart92 (Nov 25, 2021)

As long as online services allowing you to submit avatars have existed, traditionally they were fitted inside square borders. In recent years, however, many services have started to use circular borders instead, likely in an effort to look modern. While these circular avatars usually work just fine, there's always a chance that details might be lost in the process so try to keep that in mind when you're about to submit an avatar to a service that uses these circular borders.

With that out of the way, I would like to ask you a question: Which type of avatar do you prefer, square or circular? Since FA proper uses square avatars while the forums display them within a circle for whatever reason, this presents an interesting opportunity to compare the two styles, assuming that you use the same avatar to begin with.


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## TyraWadman (Nov 25, 2021)

I like square.


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## Nexus Cabler (Nov 25, 2021)

I prefer square too.

Circles are way more common now though, I guess because it has a modern styled and softer look to it.


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## Punji (Nov 25, 2021)

I think it depends on the avatar.

Some art looks better in a circle and some looks better with a square.


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## Pomorek (Nov 26, 2021)

Square one. I had to remake the picture to fit my yeen mug into this silly circle properly.


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## BronzeHeart92 (Nov 26, 2021)

Nexus Cabler said:


> I prefer square too.
> 
> Circles are way more common now though, I guess because it has a modern styled and softer look to it.


No kidding, if these forums had square avatars too, the wings of that dragon dude wouldn't clip off.


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## Marius Merganser (Nov 26, 2021)

Also square.
You can see my crest is clipped.


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## Ennui Elemental (Nov 26, 2021)

No strong opinion, I've been places where avatars weren't an option, and other places where custom avatars were not, and places where they were squares, and circles, and sometimes stars (wtf)

The avatars are not what really what I come to a forum for


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## BronzeHeart92 (Nov 26, 2021)

Ennui Elemental said:


> No strong opinion, I've been places where avatars weren't an option, and other places where custom avatars were not, and places where they were squares, and circles, and sometimes stars (wtf)
> 
> The avatars are not what really what I come to a forum for


Yeah, one should always focus on the community first and foremost. So far, I'm grateful to have been able to use custom avatars to begin with in most places. And when and if a service forces you to pick from the ones provided to you, I'll at least try and see if there's one fitting my style out there. So far, this only applies to Battle.net proper and since my main avatar of choice is one of the many player icons you get in Overwatch and one linked to Lucio at that, he was an obvious choice for me in the end even though I don't main the guy myself.


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## Deleted member 106754 (Nov 27, 2021)

Square shows more, circles show less but ultimately take up the same amount of space on a page. Prefer squares myself.

I am honestly a bit tired of the round avatar trend going on. I understand if maybe some social platforms or places wishes to have something different but it's almost like circles are made to seem better for some reason when they really aren't? We get all these circles everywhere just because Squares is what we had before and it's "out of date" or something.

Not to mention something like Windows making rounded corners on Win11 as default and it's bothering me quite a bit since there's absolutely no reason to do so unless trying to adapt windows to crappy tablets and phones with rounded corners(it's a computer operating system and we use mostly square monitors, but even so it makes very little sense.

Feels like we live in a time where people are so easily hurt that they even want to remove sharp edges from an actual image being beamed to their eyeballs.


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## BronzeHeart92 (Nov 27, 2021)

Redlinelies said:


> Square shows more, circles show less but ultimately take up the same amount of space on a page. Prefer squares myself.
> 
> I am honestly a bit tired of the round avatar trend going on. I understand if maybe some social platforms or places wishes to have something different but it's almost like circles are made to seem better for some reason when they really aren't? We get all these circles everywhere just because Squares is what we had before and it's "out of date" or something.
> 
> ...


Just because it's a 'trend' doesn't necessarily mean it's right. And as previously mentioned on this page, avatars tends to more often than not get clipped when trying to fit them inside circular frames.


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## Fallowfox (Nov 27, 2021)

Square, because the circle crops off my nose. :{


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## BronzeHeart92 (Nov 27, 2021)

Fallowfox said:


> Square, because the circle crops off my nose. :{


No kidding, the frames definitely crops it in a very awkward manner. But on the bright side, it should be possible to adjust the picture a little assuming that these forums allow you to do so.


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## Fallowfox (Nov 28, 2021)

BronzeHeart92 said:


> No kidding, the frames definitely crops it in a very awkward manner. But on the bright side, it should be possible to adjust the picture a little assuming that these forums allow you to do so.



No, the drag function doesn't work (maybe the image isn't large enough).


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