From the 1880 patch notes:

We've heard your feedback regarding the Group Nameplate and we are working on adding an additional upload slot to the group management system for them.

We will improve our nameplate image cropping behavior to be more consistent and will include the template in this upload flow so you can be sure that your nameplate looks exactly like you'd like.

This is not in this patch, but given that it's been a major feedback item, we wanted you to know we're on it.

I appreciate everyone who came by to consider, upvote, comment, and make your voice heard.

Also for your consideration: your group members may be allowed to open group instances without your permission: https://feedback.vrchat.com/bug-reports/p/missing-permissions-check-on-group-public-instance-creation-part-2

Adding to this:

Shipping a redesign this huge with zero backwards compatibility hurts. Every group banner in existence was built against the old (already unofficial) constraints, and they all broke at once with no heads up. I have a strong feeling that this was a known risk. That's a lot of collective work invalidated overnight, and it's the kind of thing you plan around before you push, even to a beta. Like, in one of those developer updates perhaps?

The bigger problem is process. In 2026 there's no excuse for shipping a banner system with no standardized resolution, no upload preview, and no official template. YouTube for instance has done the crop-and-preview thing for years. A defined safe area, an on-upload preview that shows exactly what gets cropped per layout, and published dimensions you can design against. Their channel branding docs lay the whole thing out: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/10456525

A live preview when uploading a banner, showing the safe zone and where it clips on the closed nameplate versus the open menu, would mitigate most of the complaints in this thread on its own. Right now everyone is reverse engineering the crop from screenshots.

Oh, i need take a look in this problem. I see many nameplates in 7 years. But i kinda agreed the nameplates are kinda big for me. Put many inside nameplate makes it even more bigger. Really. Group banner must more visible imho.

Will come back with my detailed reaction.

is a further redesign planned, or did we just get the yellow friends names back and you guys are going to call it a day? Because the nameplates still look awful.

tl;dr I'm saying this out of genuine concern because if the nameplates go live in the current state the community will eat you alive. Nobody likes the change.

This was one of the first things I noticed in the Beta.

Either establish the new standard sizes showing people where the cut offs are to design around. Or fit the existing dimensions in the banner that works with all nameplate sizes from small to big.

Aside from the group banners barely being visible now, and no standardized sizing, I dislike how indicator icons are overlaid on top of the group banner (Avatar Rating, Safety Rating, etc, etc.), so this is related to the banner visibility.

I get it saves space and makes things less cluttered, but I'd prefer some different solution to this. Especially considering that a specifically colored group banner might interfere with the icon colors. So it just hurts visibility for both icons and banners at a glance.

Made a quick mockup of a UI that keeps every element separate to not overlay things. In no way a final solution either, but I just wanna give thought on not having the icons overlap the other elements.

Width and height should be standardized and not dependent on username length. Just a fixed length that holds any username size, in tandem with the banner size. The pills for status and pronouns would expand up to the same length of the username/banner. The icons on the left would hide/show depending on what's applicable. Has room for more icons like mute/deafen, vrc+, interactions, and could for example show a different icon for an incoming friend request.

Most importantly I agree with the main post, the sizing should have a standard that we can stick to and work with, so we won't have to guess, or find out it looks different for a person with a shorter/longer name. In a perfect world we'd get a web UI when uploading or choosing a banner, that shows what will be visible/cropped. But even a written size guide would be big deal.

nothing to add, agree. backwards step in functionality.

Not only do the new nameplates ignores the way the userbase uses group banners, they also have a myriad of issues such as barely noticeable yellow outline for friends, massive amount of unused white space, small text that does not play nice with low resolution headsets and oddly cropped pronoun sections. All in all, I see this update as a downgrade.

the new banner template doesn't reflect reality, sadly. I remade my group banner using the template provided and it doesn't scale like the template would imply at all, the group name being in the safe area in the new banner, but not showing up in-game at all.

edit: this quick mockup I attached I completed in photoshop in about 30 minutes. You can't convince me you can't do better, I'm not a professional designer. I looked at comparisons of old vs. new people have been sharing, and let's just say the UI team made some... choices. Yes, it is less cluttered in some ways, but in others... the group banner should not be covered with any information. Even if it's the group name. People more often than not spend time making sure their cover art is perfect and the nameplate is already a small space to showcase it. Centering the avatar in the middle of the nameplate sounds like a good idea, until it isn't when you realize the current design always had a pfp that is slightly superimposed over the plate itself. This is the element that breaks familiarity once you're in-game. Finally, there are clever ways you can move information on the bigger plate with the menu open, by adding a second smaller bar on the bottom and dropping some of the info there.

Many others have said the comments I would make about the banners so I shall spare becoming a parrot, but also, please undo the change of when friends names stop being yellow. My headset is hard to read text on at times, and spotting friends out of a crowd is a MASSIVE help because of the yellow nameplates... Please don't touch this.