New Graphics

I came up with a simple but effective design for the marquee and control panel in Photoshop. I used the standard MAME logo and added a 3D shaded grid background that kind of fades into the distance. The grid is reminiscent of that familiar one that flashes onscreen while many of the roms are booting up.

 

A lot of people building MAME cabs seem to go for some kind of collage of classic game characters or marquees in the graphics. Cool idea, but my goal was to make this thing look as much like a commercially manufactured product as possible. I think I pulled it off!

Both of these panels were printed at a local sign shop on a large-format inkjet. The marquee was mounted on "Sign White" material (looks like white Plexiglass), the same stuff as many commercial backlit signs are made of. I brought my completely flat control panel to my guy at the sign shop, where he used a big thermal press to apply the graphic directly to the panel (much stronger adhesion than peel-n-stick). The top surface is a textured laminate, so it should hold up well to the abuse of gaming.