the Awesomeness poster - all you’ll ever want to know.
November 2, 2007
…and then some . So it appears a lot of people are very taken by not only Barney’s Awesomness motivational poster (probably my most popular post to date was just about what the poster said …which in case you missed it is: “When I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.” ) from How I Met Your Mother (great season so far, btw.), but also by his whole collection of motivational posters. As for the entire set, I will cover that in a later post. But for now, as promised here is all you will ever want to know about the awesomeness poster.
First of all… let me start with a small but shameless plug then you can get to the meat of the story. I searched for weeks through literally thousands of stock photos to find the fighter jet on the poster. I found a jet that was not the same but I felt embodied “Awesomeness” just the same. I bought (as in actually paid money, for some odd reason) the particular stock photo and the rights to distribute and even sell it. No worries for me because I didn’t go broke on the deal, but I did put quite a bit of time into finding and making an awesomeness poster that was actually the size of a decent poster and not just a crappy small piece of paper. 
After Photoshopping together the poster, I even put it on Cafepress where I have it marked up just enough to probably not make back the cash for the stock photos (I did finally break down make up one that looks closer to the original)…but I digress. Do check it out if you would like. I have full intentions of making up all the motivational poster from Barney’s office, but time will tell.
Not only did I make a large poster I also made up some desktop wallpapers. They are decent so feel free to partake: 1027.768, 1152.864, 1280.960, 1600.1200. 
I thought about doing more, but then I noticed what our nice friends at Target had done… I should offer thanks to howimetyourblog.com for the proof, story and photo. Cheers to you !
Either way I’m glad we can get a hold of the real thing right? Well for me it’s not that simple. This poster looks decent size but I love big poster…maybe it’s just me though. besides not like my wife would let me hang it on the wall…lol. Either way, I have read and searched quite extensively on the subject, and from what I can tell this is pretty much an exclusive deal with Target. It would be nice if they had several different of Barney’s motivational posters but, I figure they either have it planned for the future, they rest all come from demotivators.com (and are already copyrighted) or they have no plans whatsoever do do anything more with them. Also, I am not totally sure about the actual size of the poster that comes with the DVD. I did find two interesting resources for anyone interested in making a poster that looks like the real thing. First off, after looking (see earlier, seriously have you forgotten already) for the original F-16 stock photo for weeks…I finally came across it…
Aaron..you may ask..where can I find said photo? I figured you would ask so here is a link… enjoy.
Secondly though, I ran across a made up Awesomeness Poster on flickr by luzarie. It’s pretty close to the original poster. Same sort of colors and what not if your not in the mood for downloading the stock photo and making your own (which I still may do). It’s not bad but still much smaller than I would want at about 12″ x 17″.
Finally… I feel the need to start a conspiracy theory. 
So what we know for sure is that the Awesomeness poster is first mentioned in Season 1 Episode 17 (Life Among the Gorillas) of HIMYM. And when it is mentioned Barney motions to either the back left corner of his office behind his desk. We also know that the poster makes it first “on screen” appearance in Season 3 Episode 1 (Wait For It…) (..stop waiting that was the name of the episode, sheesh) and at this time it is behind Barney’s desk to the right of the center of the room. So he just moved his posters around right? Wrong.
If you take a look at not only episode 1.17 but also Season 1 Episode 21 (Milk) you will see so full shots which I will post below. Check them out and let me know what you notice (by the way I use Lightbox2 plugin for Wordpress so just click on the image and it will load with some fancy flash looking javascript.) You can navigate through the 4 shots once you open any one.
Let me point out a few things. First, in the area Barney pointed, the awesomeness poster is not there. Behind his desk there is no poster with the F-16 jet we saw in season 3 or the correct number of letters for the word “Awesomeness.” It can’t be on the wall to the left of Barney because as you ca see there is just a huge set of windows. Was there even an awesomeness poster is Season 1…or just the mention of it. It seems to me that, as they do sometimes, fans made such a deal out of it that the threw it in in Season 3 as a great gag. Does this mean that all of Season 1 was a lie? Well… actually yes, it is a TV show remember? Sheesh, you all take this way to serious…
Either way…Thanks for reading. Thoughts and comments are welcome!
Posted in Television
content rss
November 2nd, 2007 at 4:39 pm
[…] over and check out the full post for all you could possibly want to know about Barney’s Awesomeness poster. Share and […]
November 2nd, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Wow! What a write up! Thanks for all the information and the link love.
I was hoping to email you but, can’t find an email address on your site. Shoot me an email to the email address supplied with this post.
Oh, and War Eagle!
November 2nd, 2007 at 5:17 pm
Ben,
Thanks so much for the comments and returning the link love! I’ll be posting an email address in my about section shortly.
War Eagle all the way!
November 18th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
I’m so glad someone made an awesomeness poster! I’d be interested in ordering it if it were smaller. Would you consider making a smaller version? I’d like to have one small enough to hang put on my desk at work.
November 18th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
Marie,
Thanks for your comments! I’ll work on one and put it up in the next few days…I also thought about doing a mousepad…Thoughts?
December 16th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
I made one too:)
December 16th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
@ patrick
Nice. Did you make on like the original or using a different photo/ slogan?
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:19 am
[…] here. I’ll do my best to make them desktops but who knows. Many of you already know about the Awesomeness Motivational Poster (I know the post was on a Friday but work with me here people), so I won’t include that one […]
January 17th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
can someone finish this one needs only the text
http://massmirror.com/e398ba7b87a65bc984e3a9e8cd0c8b25.html
January 18th, 2008 at 1:00 am
not a bad poster. I could easily Photoshop it but the quality seems low. The size is large enough for a big poster however it’s only in 72 dpi….I wouldn’t print anything less than 200 dpi (and that is pushing it). After you convert it to 300 (or 200 dpi) it about the same size as the one lazurie has on flickr.
Thanks though.
January 24th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
The original jet picture available exclusively on iStockphoto has at it’s largest size available a 206.8 dpi image that is 8×10 inches large. The largest poster I’ve been able to make without converting the image to a larger dpi is 12×17. Like aaron says, the image quality goes downhill quickly if you try to make it any larger.
I’ve tried to make several sizes of this image (5×7, 8×10, 11×17, 12×17 so far) on my Flickr page for folks to use but a truly large poster is just not possible. Sorry folks.
March 2nd, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Hi,
I have a guestion to you guys, does anyone of you know what the text under the penguins says?
Maybe: …. “It´s the one who is different who is left out in the cold”.
please help me
thx
March 2nd, 2008 at 10:26 pm
@ Lazaire
Thanks for the confirmation man.
@Packfriend
The Penguin poster is for Conformity and does in fact say “It’s the one who is different that gets let out in the cold”…I have actually seen it somewhere… if you find it before I do please post some info here!
Thanks for visiting.
March 17th, 2008 at 7:54 am
[…] They are the “exclusive” holders of the Awesomeness Poster stock photo “Vapor Trail.” That’s right. For all of you lovers of How I Met Your […]
May 8th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
[…] What it actually says is pretty funny, and it got me thinking about the real motivational posters you see in SkyMall — you know, the ones with misty images of rainbows and sunrises and wise quotes from philosophers and poets. […]
May 9th, 2008 at 8:08 am
I would like to buy this poster. Does anyone know where I can purchase it?
May 9th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Over 2,000 views later and someone finally wised me up to the fact that I was spelling his name as Barney Stinton in the smaller Awesomeness posters. That’s been fixed now. Sorry folks.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/luzaire/sets/72157602499940050
And Amstar, feel free to download any of the pictures on my flickr page and print them out at your favorite digital picture printer. (i.e. home, local photo place, Wal-Mart, Walgreens, etc.)
If you want to print the big 12×18 poster that looks the most like the original on the show you will need to find someone capable of printing a large poster size, like QOOP.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Luzaire….
You are totally the man… really. I did go ahead and put one like the original up on cafepress…had to save up for the resale license from iStockphoto…maybe I’ll break even. lol….By the way, sorry that your comment has been stuck in my spam queue for almost a week now!
June 1st, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Has anyone put together a poster or desktop wallpaper for the Conformity penguins? A link to the .jpg would be awesome. Thanks a lot!
June 2nd, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Danny… Try this out: the Conformity Motivational Poster
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:11 am
[…] Your Mother fans. It’s no secret that most of my visitors come here for information on Barney Stinson’s Awesomeness Poster. Many of you have also requested some of the other Motivational Posters from Barney’s office. […]