It’s been almost a year since the last round of “Five Questions,” that gloriously awkward game where tumbledryers get to ask me any five questions they want. So, I thought I’d bring it back for another round. What do you want to know? What would you like to ask me? Burning questions? Burning sensations? Bring on the former, and go to a doctor for the latter!
In a fun twist this year, the first question directed towards another tumbledryer (tumbledrier? still haven’t decided on that spelling) holds binding power to the user at whom they direct said query. That is, if Commenter A asks Commenter B a question, and Commenter A is the first person to ask a question, then Commenter B (bound by essentially nothing except their honor) must answer the question posed by Commenter A. We’ll see how that one goes.
Questions to how any of this actually works won’t go towards the five question total.
Music typography - I have got to find some time to sit down and read this article. Particularly fascinating are the pictures of actual real metal typesetting of music. An amazing art that typesetting, I wonder how close it is to being lost.
As we all know, I am a Biochemistry senior. I mention this because this fact necessitates me being an amateur graphic designer. By amateur, I mean that I have no formal training. Therefore, the what I know has been gleaned from what I could find out about topics like vertical rhythm, grid systems, CSS, and improving my Photoshop skills. But I digress. “Design” is a side hobby, meant to present in the best possible light my extensive project in writing my own website from scratch using Apache, PHP, and mySQL.
That said, recently I ran into quite a quandary with regard to my newest logo. Here’s the deal. Dan Cederholm is a rockstar designer with CSS chops so righteous that he’s written more than one book on the topic. I’ve read his site as a helpful resource for years, back to and before his faux columns method in 2004. My confidence in his work inspired me to invest in his Stockholm icons this past October 3, 2006. You will see that they are used in the top header of this website, as visual cues enhancing the text.
It all sounds good so far, right? Far from it. Here’s the problem. My recent logo overhaul, which I so happily talked about recently, uses curly braces in much the same way Dan’s icon does. Visit SimpleBits to see what I mean. I recently sent my URL to Dan, saying essentially: “Hey, I used your Stockholm icons; thanks they were great!” I then took another look at his site and my stomach sank: “my logo design looks a lot like his.” Feeling not-great, I followed up on my first message to Dan, saying, “My logo looks a bit like yours. Is it too close for comfort?” I haven’t yet heard back, but I am feeling very uncertain about this situation.
I remember my thought process in assembling this latest icon, and I know I did not consciously think of Dan’s brilliant original use of the curly braces to frame his logo. I know I’ve used square brackets in past attempts at the logo (one of which was on my profile on waferbaby, but the version of waferbaby is long gone). Legally, however, even unconscious copying is infringement (replace program with logo):
… unconscious copying can constitute infringement just as if you were looking at the program when you wrote yours, the more exposure you have to an existing computer program, the more care you need to take when writing a similar program.
So I am on shaky ground with my logo. Furthermore, I am unsure whether my icon usage (the icons I purchased) falls within the acceptable category. That is, the license for the Stockholm Icons reads:
The icons may be used by the licensee in any personal or commercial projects (royalty-free). They may not be resold or redistributed. For example: packaged in an application where they could be downloaded for free, such as an open-source project or other application where the icons are bundled along with other files.
The only places I have seen these purchased icons used are the content management systems of websites, which are, by definition, password protected and therefore inaccessible by the general online population. This prevents the icons from accidentally being redistributed. My usage puts them in a very public, unprotected, environment.
The good side to all of this: I’m not trying to sell any of this work, I do not make money from tumbledry, and I am just a biochem student. I’d like to know what you all think about any similarities between logos: too much, too coincidental? Am I diluting Mr. Cederholm’s mark with my own?
Make your Mac know when you return and leave - Here’s a nifty thing for those Mac users out there to try (not me, darnit). Anyway, using this nifty little hack, you can make your Mac pause your iTunes, set your iChat away status, turn on the screensaver, etc. when you walk away. This is done by detecting when your Bluetooth enabled phone is out of range.
The previous logo on tumbledry meant absolutely nothing (just like the ones before it). I still liked the way it looked but … as a recognizable widget, it really accomplished nothing. Additionally, I had been using the first take on my color scheme since about July of last year. As a side note: indeed, taking a design from the drawing board to live takes about 6 months. Well, it takes me sixth months because I have all these other hairbrained ideas on the journey. That said, I noticed some serious problems with the color scheme. The ratios of green to red to blue were completely wrong. Half the time things looked like a bad version of Christmas with some blue tossed in. So, a concerted (minor) graphic refresh was undertaken.
The presence of red has been reduced markedly, such that greens and blues now dominate the colors. Furthermore, I’m especially happy with the logo. I’ve had this idea for the logo rolling around in my head for about three years (previously rendered using square brackets), and I’ve sketched it out at various points along the way. Here’s a version from 2003:
This time, it all finally came together. The logo is a stylized representation of the tumble dry icon. It is set in ITC Kabel, and because it is composed of typographic characters, it has the advantage of being able to be rendered in plain text, thus: {o}. Anyhow, a simple tilt at an angle, followed by an application of the wicked worn look, and there you go!
Finally, I accidentally threw these graphic refresh files online a bit early, so there’s no navigation at this point in time. Have no fear, tumbledry will regain navigation in the next couple of days. In the meantime, hope you all like it.
On campus today, I saw a kid with a sweatshirt that said “Holy Angels Football.” I thought it would be funny if they renamed the school “Holy Angles,” just for the comedic effect for the football team name. “Holy Angles Football” sounds funny … like they have the perfect angles … or something. Though, the name would work best for a pool league. “The Holy Angles Pool Players League Of Awesomeness”.
