MetaChat REGISTER   ||   LOGIN   ||   IMAGES ARE OFF   ||   RECENT COMMENTS




artphoto by splunge
artphoto by TheophileEscargot
artphoto by Kronos_to_Earth
artphoto by ethylene

Home

About

Search

Archives

Mecha Wiki

Metachat Eye

Emcee

IRC Channels

IRC FAQ


 RSS


Comment Feed:

RSS

06 March 2007

Our sidebar art has been brought to you by mudpuppie and her legendary photo of the Fris (frisbee girl), the handsome and talented BoringPostcards and his faboo photo of some gorgeous signage (cropped here), and moi, from our first-ever emcee squared. Over on the right are three of mrs. pants' great "sad animals" buttons (follow the link if you want to get some for yourself!). [More:]

Of course, if you've been mousing over the images, you already know all this. If those tooltip captions are a surprise, you can see where that happened in this thread, along with a couple of other small changes.

So... when I choose the sidebar art, I usually try to carry through some sort of motif or recurring theme that might be contextual or might simply be some kind of loosely related visual repetition - and I've wondered if I should mention what those themes are (when they occur), or not. I figured I would do it this time - next time, who knows?

This set was basically about ovoids, primary colors and black and white. All the images have a central circular image of some kind: friz's pretty round noggin (plus the arc of her arm, for a half-circle), BP's oval signs, my fortune-telling boy's round turban and his oval "crystal ball", which is actually a plate design iconomy made - and of course mrs. pant's buttons are round themselves, as well as having round-ish art on them (and don't you just love saying "mrs. pant's buttons"?).

And that's our round, and bright, and b&w motif du jour!
Those tooltip captions are tha bomb! And I never say that.
posted by omiewise 06 March | 16:19
That's awesome, taz! Lovin' the motif theme thingy.

And I just want to kiss the bee on his sad little head!
posted by Specklet 06 March | 16:31
I've really been loving how all the art works together, taz. Totally eclectic, but totally cohesive. Kudos and whuffles and thanks!
posted by occhiblu 06 March | 16:33
Love the art, but especially like hearing about the theme.
posted by danostuporstar 06 March | 16:37
I'm glad! Each one has has some kind of theme, and I've always wondered if I should mention it, or if it should be a teenyweeny easter egg, or if nobody would really be much interested... Of course, now that I've said this, the next time I start putting together the art, I'm probably going to acquire designers' block or something. :)
posted by taz 06 March | 16:41
Hey and beer and big signs are manly right? Come back Doohickie... come back ;)
posted by arse_hat 06 March | 16:54
That pitcher was full when Fris started.
posted by urbanwhaleshark 06 March | 16:58
It's like Irish Spring! Made for a man, but I like it, too!
posted by taz 06 March | 16:58
Yay, thanks for the button love! (I swear there will be some new ones for sale soon.)

Since mrs.pants is too shy to promote her goods, I'll do it for her: She's got another bunch of buttons for sale over here.

posted by me3dia 06 March | 18:02
Is it just me or does it seem kind of tacky to pick your own art for the sidebar?
posted by kyleg 07 March | 02:03
heh. Well, I used that because I wanted some bright yellow, some red, and some 'round' ... I talked about that a little bit over here.

But it's completely wrong and a big mistake to think that the sidebar art is some sort of award, or reward, or something. When I'm putting together the images that I think look nice together, all I care about are what visual elements work with what other pieces. I started this set with the idea of doing something with some bright colors after doohickie's comments, and I remembered BoringPostcard's photo in a recent photo friday thread, so I began with that, and then started looking for other things with primary colors (and black and white, to offset, and backgrounds that can be dropped out because I don't want everything to be square/square/square) and roundness.

I suppose it's next to impossible to do anything that's featured on the site without generating some hard feelings somehow, but I really hope this doesn't do that. It changes all the time, so there should be stuff by lots of different people showing up, and I really did just love the idea of designing the page to highlight cool art and photography by our members, which is one of the things I love about the site - the various creative efforts and projects.

On the other hand, I might just be a self stroking egomaniac. I wouldn't put it past me, not one bit.
posted by taz 07 March | 02:29
oops... mistake. "I talked a little bit about that" right here in this thread. Hm.
posted by taz 07 March | 02:31
"But it's completely wrong and a big mistake to think that the sidebar art is some sort of award, or reward, or something. " As the first person to have art in the first position in the sidebar art display I agree.

"But it's completely wrong and a big mistake to think that the sidebar art is some sort of award, or reward, or something. " Are you saying I am thin skined? Hmm?

"I might just be a self stroking egomaniac." Nothing wrong with "self stroking" egomaniac or not.

"oops... mistake. "I talked a little bit about that" right here in this thread. Hm." A bit self referential aren't we?
posted by arse_hat 07 March | 02:38
Crap
"But it's completely wrong and a big mistake to think that the sidebar art is some sort of award, or reward, or something. " Are you saying I am thin skined? Hmm?

Should have been


"I suppose it's next to impossible to do anything that's featured on the site without generating some hard feelings somehow," Are you saying I am thin skined? Hmm?
posted by arse_hat 07 March | 02:41
I don't know, but I'm pretty sure the hard feelings and the self stroking fit together somehow.
posted by taz 07 March | 02:43
I just wasn't really sure about any sort of protocol. I like the new top menu bar a lot, though.
posted by kyleg 07 March | 02:43
I've been totally despotic about it in one sense because I do think that pulling together different pieces to work on the front page absolutely requires the "designer's eye" (so to speak) to make everything look nice together, but I think it would be great fun to open that up to other designers on the site as well, who can choose the member-created art elements to use and create something of their own, as well, if they'd like, for the right-hand spot.

This would be ultragroovy, and now that I think about it, I'll make a post about that (after I finish moving). But it does take a design aesthetic, because otherwise, with three columns and at least five completely different pieces of art floating around the front page, it could look mighty hodgepodge mighty quick.
posted by taz 07 March | 02:53
Oh! You have given me an idea for a theme. Famous despots of the 20th century!
posted by arse_hat 07 March | 03:03
ooh! The nav. bar. Glad you like it, kyleg. I've been wanting to float it with rounded corners since I first did the redesign, but I wanted to do it without images or javascript, which seemed impossible with a fluid column layout, but then I found an example... and damned if I can't find it now. I thought I got to it via this page (a very nice breakdown of techniques), but now I can't seem to spot the one I used. d'oh.
posted by taz 07 March | 03:11
ah, here: the spiffy corners generator. I can't believe how well it worked - I didn't have to do anything extra at all. Very sweet.
posted by taz 07 March | 03:43
I love hearing about the theme/motif that went into choosing the pics... definitely keep posting those, maybe just like you did this one, a few hours after the fact, so folks can see the layout first, and then later read about the thinking behind it. It gives kind of a nice "aha!" moment.
posted by BoringPostcards 07 March | 07:36
I'm beginning to miss some of the old work though. We don't really have a record of what images were posted when, do we?

If not... *volunteers to start wiki page*
posted by danostuporstar 07 March | 12:56
If you want to start a wiki page, I'll help in any way I can; I've thought about this, and then concluded that I'm totally too lazy. But if all I have to do is forward artwork and/or screenshots, I'm so in.
posted by taz 07 March | 13:29
Will do.
posted by danostuporstar 07 March | 13:35
More creative test answers || So here I am analyzing Northeast sub-area expense summaries

HOME  ||   REGISTER  ||   LOGIN