The majority of NFTs have been used as profile pictures (PFP) to showcase users' favorite purchases and are considered a popular utility for many projects. 

The artwork and theme of a collection can make a big impact on buyers and helps determine how successful a project can be. Some of the most popular PFPs include Bored & Mutant Apes, Cyberpunks, Azuki, doodles, and most recently Moonbirds. 

However, with PFP collections flooding the market demand for banner pictures is starting to see a rise to help complete the visual aspects of profiles on Twitter, Discord, and OpenSea. 

In anticipation of this new trend here are 3 banner projects leading the pack. 

Midnight Breeze

Midnight Breeze is one of the earliest banner projects by an independent artist named Dutchtide. The collection has been on secondary markets for some time now and has a floor price which has floated between .3 and .5 Eth for the most part. 

The project explicitly describes itself as banner artwork which features a dark urban Japanese theme. It’s a unique style and has a lot of potential to pair well with PFP projects such as Azuki. 

NeoTokyo Citizens could possibly work too as a pairing if the two images are chosen well; but more than just banner artwork, the entire project plans to move itself forward by introducing a new project in the future called TideEstates which will provide holders an entrance into the metaverse. 

This could work extremely well with PFP projects that also incorporate metaverse functionality and open the door where a PFP avatar could actually reside in the Midnight Breeze world. 

Ethereal States

This project is still being worked on and has garnered a lot of attention in anticipation for its release. True to its name, sneak peeks from the team show artwork that has a dreamlike quality created by pixels. 

The team has stated that there will be 18 layers for each token which will create a large variety of options for buyers to choose from that best match their PFPs. What’s super exciting is that the team has only released information on the first 17 layers, leaving the last 18th layer a complete mystery!

There have also been rumors in their Discord server of Everai wishing to do some sort of collaboration with the Ethereal States team including pixelated fan art of the Everai series. 

The project has also caught the attention of the popular ChampsOnly team who have been promoting the banner picture meta.

Ethereal States is attracting a lot of great attention from reputable teams and is something to keep an eye for as we approach its mint date in June 2022. 

Lilium by Taylor

The Lilium project, while experimental in nature, has garnered positive attention for its modern art style. 

While the project wasn’t created with the intention of being a banner, the artist made an announcement on their Discord channel in April 2022 suggesting that holders use the bottom third of their Lilium tokens as banners which show Taylor’s signature. 

It's an interesting move for the project and a useful one considering that the tokens themselves don’t offer much utilities. 

With thoughts on banners already being discussed by Taylor and the community, a more dedicated project in the future could be in the works already which could provide more opportunities for value to collections which focus on the art itself over utility. 

What’s exciting about NFT Banners

The exciting thing about all of this is that NFTs as banners has been a concept that’s circulated around NFT communities for some time now without much activity, and as more people start to notice this lack of supply in the market we can expect to see more teams work towards creating high quality banner art. 

There are a lot of opportunities for teams to work together with other projects that use similar and matching art styles which will further encourage users to exchange NFTs. Users will be able to find the perfect combination of PFPs and banners which they feel best represents themselves and their brands. 

Moreover, the potential to incorporate banners into the Metaverse as places of residence for a PFP avatar is even more exciting and something that everyone should be considering as this new variety of NFT begins to hit the market.