Create Your Own Image to Change The Default Gravatar in WordPress

19th Mar 2010 | Posted by Eko S. | 25 Comments

WordPress provides some images to choose as the default gravatar, this gravatar will be appear if a comment doesn’t have gravatar. Can we change these default gravatar? We want our comment section is unique and give a more personalized touch. In this tutorial we’ll take a custom image and add it as the default gravatar.

change-cover

If we see the others famous blogs, most of them use this feature…let we see the example below :

How to?

Please look the goal of our project as shown below

thegoal

Step 1 – Create an image for gravatar in photoshop

Make a new file, we will make an image of size 400×400 pixels
Then make a background for this image, I choose the color [#0054a6] and [#0d004c] then with the gradient tool I drew a line from the top left corner to bottom right corner.
Now we make the logo, in this tutorial I make a written ‘DW’, with the settings as shown below
Then on the Layer Style, I make the settings as shown below

And see the result
Next we make the ribbon. I made a square image with color #0054a6 and the size of as shown below
Then on the layer style, I use the feature “Drop Shadow”, “Gradient Overlay” and “Stroke” with settings as shown below.

And see the result
Make a written “guest”, with the settings as shown below

Then on the Layer Style, I use the feature Gradient overlay with the settings as shown below

See the result
Finally, resize our image with the size like 128x128px or 80x80px or 64x64px or 32×32 px, as shown below

Download

You can download these free gravatar images, six images .png files at 128px.

free_gravatar.zip (35.2 KiB, 318 hits)

Step 2 – Upload your image

Use FTP tools, then upload to your theme directory “wp-content/themes/yourthemes/images” or you can use the wordpress admin panel > Media > Add New
Then choose edit in your image to see the url link to the image.

Step 3 – Adding new code to function.php

Thanks to build internet for this code (please open the link for more detail explanation)

<?php

add_filter( 'avatar_defaults', 'newgravatar' );

function newgravatar ($avatar_defaults) {
$myavatar = get_bloginfo('template_directory') . '/images/gravatar.jpg';
$avatar_defaults[$myavatar] = "Build Internet";
return $avatar_defaults;
}

?>

Please change this line in accordance with your image link

$myavatar = get_bloginfo('template_directory') . '/images/gravatar.jpg';

Save it.

Step 4 – Change the default gravatar with your own image

In wordpress admin panel > Settings > Discussion

Give the check on a new image that we make before to make it the default gravatar.

That’s all, but I would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions in the comment section below on any areas that you need further clarification or that you would do a little bit differently.

15 Comments to “Create Your Own Image to Change The Default Gravatar in WordPress”

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Sandi Stahmer says:

March 20, 2010 at 14:14

I wanted to thank you for this excellent read!! I definitely enjoyed every little bit of it. I have you bookmarked your site to check out the new stuff you post.

Reply
Rob says:

March 20, 2010 at 15:46

Thanks so much for this! Very useful

Reply
- Eko S. says:
  
  March 20, 2010 at 17:48
  
  Hi Rob, thanks for your comment…we try to share what we know.
  Nice to meet u
  
  Reply
TemiGratisWordpress says:

March 23, 2010 at 02:43

It’s amazing how you managed to make simple things that until a few days ago seemed complicated. Thanks again for the post

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Free Software Full Version says:

April 2, 2010 at 07:28

Thanks for your detail n excellent tutorials :cheers:

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Z says:

April 2, 2010 at 10:58

Nice post thank you for sharing!

Reply
Hanif says:

April 12, 2010 at 01:54

I was did this tutorial and great… My blog look awesome and professional. Thanks.

Reply
Sue says:

April 18, 2010 at 02:51

Thanks! This makes my blog look much more professional and keeps the theme.

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Amy says:

May 7, 2010 at 12:28

Thanks a million for this.

Super easy tut and love the result.

Reply
Kiwi says:

May 31, 2010 at 09:38

Really GREAT!
I was looking for a tut like for a long time and now I got the solution.
THX!

Reply
- Kiwi says:
  
  May 31, 2010 at 09:40
  
  * I forgot “this” in a sentence
  
  Reply
- Eko S. says:
  
  May 31, 2010 at 17:51
  
  Great, we are glad this tutorial is useful for you.
  
  Reply
George Serradinho says:

June 9, 2010 at 06:45

Thanks for this tutorial. I just created my own default gravatar for my blog and I’m very happy with the results. It was easy to follow and get working. I think many can do this change with ease and maybe WP should make it possible to upload a gravatar in the backend without adding a function

Reply
George Serradinho says:

June 14, 2010 at 02:33

I have just posted about this little hack and it will be published later today with a link back to this post. I hope many others will try it and give their blog/site a personalized look and feel.

Reply
- Eko S. says:
  
  June 14, 2010 at 04:21
  
  Hi George, thats nice…all of our tutorials and tips are for everyone.
  Thanks
  
  Reply