Since the concept of an artistic profile, it is safe to say that it is not the same now as it started out then. Once in a while something happened that completly changed the style of creating an artistic profile. Here are some concepts that has changed how people approach an artistic profile. I tried to align the sections chronologically.

The screenshot showcase used to be a showcase that displays screenshots taken while gaming. However, the community has figured out a way to add PNG and GIF files to your screenshots section so it can be displayed using the screenshot showcase. The following guide explains how to do it.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=693118839
This method enabled a lot of options for the community. Previously there was only one artwork showcase, but now technically there are two and some people in the community even combined the two showcases to display an artwork. It was popularized by snaws.

The workshop showcase has always been around but were only utilized by a few. The following guide has enabled us to use artworks as part of our workshop which allowed us to use this showcase to decorate our profile.
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=727014963
Creating a workshop was harder than creating and artwork but this showcase was popularized by Azu who created multiple free workshop showcases that everyone could use. This raised more awareness of the workshop showcase and more people started using it.

Here, you can see some examples of how to utilize the workshop showcase using this method.

Emoticons have been added to steam and can be used like emojis when texting, but steam users have also used them to decorate their profile usually adding more colors to their info box.

The concept of emoticon art is to use a lot of emoticons to create an image with it. This used to be very hard until the following website was developed:

http://steam.tools/mosaticon/

This allowed us to visualize what we are creating before doing so. Making an emoticon art got much easier. A lot of people combined their emoticon art in their info box. In most cases people created their steam alias as an emoticon art or some simple logos. The most common ones you have probably seen are the hearts that people often make and comment on each others profiles.




Only advanced emoticon artists could make complex arts from scratch. After a while "Mosaticon" added a new function where you can upload an image and it will recreate the image with the emoticons you have which you can then edit and change if you did not like it. This allowed regular users to make more complex emoticon arts and more people used more advanced emoticon artworks in their info box.



In addition, 2 showcases can be combined to make the most complex emoticon arts if you are skilled enough to do so.

Since the very start of profile decoration, users have tried various different ways to decorate their avatar. It was usually part of the background but then someone tried to use a texture that looks like it was part of the top part of the profile. This gave the avatar a cleaner look. Some examples can be seen below.



Other users have taken this a step further and used more advanced textures to make the avatar even more advanced, combining the avatar with the green or blue boarder that surrounds the avatar when an user is online or in game.




All the textures needed for that can be found here:

Transparent avatar texture

Online avatar texture
In Game avatar texture
Offline avatar texture

Fake background sidebars are a special kind of Steam background that give the illusion the center area of your profile extends outward on each side. These backgrounds were designed by Aevoa and can be found in many of the Zup! games. For quite some time a vast majority of the communitywas using the Zup! backgrounds as part of their profile. It was the go to background whenever someone did not know which one to use.

In the past the artwork showcase only allowed a certain size of artwork to be displayed and the side art consisted of three small boxes that were the same size. If you were not part of the community back then, there is a chance that you might have never seen an artwork showcase like that since no one is using it anymore. The following is an example of how it used to look.



However, MightyG3 has figured out a way how to make the artwork in the showcase to any length someone desires.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=748624905
This revolutionized the way people were creating the artwork showcase and allowed for a single long side art instead of the three small ones. This has also lead to the creating of the fake side art on the left side to go along with the new side art on the right side.

After the long artwork exploit has been detected, people started using a long side artwork instead of the three squared side art used before. To make the artwork look more symmetrical zu // Χ Ξ Σ◂ and as_h have added a fake side art on the left creating the illusion of having another artwork on the left side.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1165778253

I hope this guide was a help to you. If you think we missed something, let us know in the comment section below. Thank you very much.

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