Birds and stuff

that's right, these bad boys. simple and not meant to stand out, but i'm quite fond of them!

there's a surprising amount of variation that these signs have had over the years, which. well it's actually not that surprising given how few graphics in animal jam are actually consistent lmao. but anyway here's a bunch of fun facts about em!

1. each area has a building icon to represent it, which is always consistent between signs. the chamber of knowledge for temple of zios, the juice hut for crystal sands, the tree for appondale, etc. but there is just one that's incorrect, and it's the sign pointing to the township from sarepia.

that building is the old version of jam mart clothing. from before jmc and club geoz swapped places in the beta testing.

let me repeat, this sign was already outdated during the beta and it has remained unchanged for 13 YEARS

2. most of the signs are drawn in this style here, with intricate shading and dark straps+hooks.

but a few of them, inexplicably, aren't. they look like this instead.

the weird thing is that the earliest signs in the game (ones shown in beta) and the newest signs (ones added with balloosh) both use the first style. so i guess this second style was some weird middle period where they changed the standard for some reason..???

3. the underwater area signs aren't as interesting since they are actually fully consistent. probably because all the underwater graphics are in vector instead of the usual crusty jpegs, they could streamline it more.

they do have a cool style to em though, and i think this crystal sands sign looks funny

4. the area signs in lost temple of zios are not there anymore. like they are just. gone. they were here in the beta, they were here in 2015 when the wiki's picture was added, and at some point they disappeared.

from what i can tell i think they were removed in the 2017 solar eclipse version of lost temple of zios and just... never got brought back.

5. the sizes of the signs are so inconsistent and i love it <3

The signs leading to appondale are also based on old concept art for what would become claws n' paws. You can see it used in some old promotional material like here as a banner from the 2010 animation website (yes it was just this messy on the site):

Notice the banners, porch overhang, darker wood, and the big rock underneath? it was also completely outdated once appondale came out (april 14, 2011)

Also similar the Sarepia Forest sign is also based on the pre-beta design of the Sarepia Theater (from Mark Jarman's artstation).

Notice the sign sticking up in the middle of the horizontal sign?

Even the beta version of Sarepia theater did not have this!

Beta/Concept Art Appondale [Link 1] [Link 2]:

Another Beta/Concept Art Appondale?

Appondale before release:

Appondale testing/very early draft (taken from AJ Classic Wiki):

Also the Tree is a Baobab :)

[Link]

There's some bit.ly links to some articles that (when you redirect and put them back into the wayback machine) are archived for you to read.

[Link]

Nothing too interesting, but it is fun to see something written about Animal Jam early on!

National Geographic Brings Out The Animal In You by Mike Fahey

(Closed beta testing screenshot on the right and a recreation on the left)

A common misconception I hear about the early beta is that this koala has a leopard spot pattern but actually this was just a rendering error that koala patterns had at the time. The brown gazelle koala here just has the regular spot pattern.

(Closed beta testing screenshot on the right and a recreation on the left)

This is another example of the koala pattern rendering error.

It's possible that this happened because koala patterns have a unique 3D effect as it is black where the shadows normally are.

Another fun interesting thing about koalas in the early beta is that they had a different idle animation/pose! Both koalas above are idle.

It's hard to see but, here is a gif of the old idle animation vs the modern idle animation:

something akin to the Basement of Secrets, where you have to click on a specific like 10x10 pixel area on the bottom left of the map,

but on different areas of the map that are either not used by any land or are spots inbetween lands that dont highlight any area like the island between Kani Cove and Bahari Bay

when you go to any of these areas, youre taken to entirely New unfinished or unused rooms, maybe something even like the hidden developer rooms like "Test Room", "Speedo Sands", "Andrew's" developer rooms, and the "TBA" adventure (which could be its own unfiction concept on its own for like unfinished adventures)

theyd be either Handdrawn backgrounds which could be REALLY difficult but if pulled off well look Amazing, or Old concept art for rooms like the Lobo Cavern and the Sarepia Forest concept art (both drawn by Mark Jarman)

EDIT BECAUSE I WAS THINKING OF IT AND FORGOT ALSO LARGELY HUGELY INSPIRED BY THE 2015 AJPW TREASURE HUNT MAP THAT EXPANDS THE JAMAA MAP like look at all the POTENTIAL. every location here HAD names too

Commission for someone on AJC. Posted this on my AJ insta but I’m too happy with it to not put it up here too