Photo of a child on man’s avatar. Probably the last time any woman told him he was cute.

Photo of a child on woman’s avatar. A stay at home mother who has nothing else to talk about but her kids. (Probably uses a screen name such as “MomOf2″.)

Just the eye. Seeks a deep contact with people while trying to remain anonymous and appear soulful. Kind of works but is quite unoriginal and thus utterly forgettable.

Popular cartoon character – A male who is trying the “boyish charm” angle although it has never worked for anyone. We’ve seen enough of Vinnie the Pooh and friends already! Original cartoon characters by the man/woman behind the avatar, are encouraged though!

Disproportioned photo - An avatar of a casual Internet user who hasn’t yet found the delights of Photoshopping. (Has uploaded a photo straight from the camera, without shaping it into a square first.) Unprofessional.

Logo – impersonal. Is here to sell me something.

The vast majority of people prefer the picture of a person in an avatar over a logo or other graphic. People want to speak to people. If your avatar is listed amongst several others (like recent visitors list), the likelihood that you’ll get a click is higher if it’s your face in there. But, sometimes you need to put that logo up there. Another thing is, that if you’re using your photo, it gets boring after a while, and intolerable to you when you get a better photo of yourself. But the problem arises, that people get confused if you change your avatar. They won’t remember who you are for a while, until you say something really characteristic to yourself. I believe I found a solution to both of these problems. You are not likely to change your logo too often, right? So why not use that together with your photograph?

Here are some of my recent avatars:

See what I mean? There are elements in the avatar that stay constant while I get bored with the rest of it – me. :p This of course requires some Photoshop skills, but nothing too complicated. This also gives you the option of using different theme in the photos while still tying them to yourself. The one I’m holding my dog is used on social sites for field spaniel owners. The one I hold a pen in, is designed for my writer’s profile.

Lastly, it’s a good idea to upload your avatar to Gravatar, which is a centralized avatar storage, that will allow you to link a photo to your email address. This way when you comment on a blog (all that have Gravatar enabled) will fetch your photo that matches the email address you used. Sweet.