[Grok-dev] Re: I know it sucks, but here goes.... grok.zope.org :)

[Sebastian Ware]

Personal vs. personalised...

I just want to clarify my view about old vs. new grok style. I  
realise some feel this is a storm in a teapot -- I apologise for my  
annoying persistence!!! :)

My objections are along the lines of potential, rather than popularity.

Even though the old grok has a more personal style (being hand drawn  
with lots of detail), he can't be personalised. My suggested  
modernised grok could easily be personalised so "everybody" got their  
own personal grok. A cool grok avatar. It just feels more like a  
community to me that way.

The fact that the new grok style is very low in detail gives us  
several advantages (over old grok). Firstly, you can easily mix and  
match bodies with faces, thus anybody can create illustrations by  
cutting and pasting in photoshop/gimp/illustrator... secondly, it is  
a style of illustration that is fairly easy to copy, even with  
limited experience of illustrator you will be able to create your  
personal face.

With this style you get the excellent side effect that all these  
avatars are scalable from stamp size to books to building wide  
projections.

Mvh Sebastian

12 jun 2007 kl. 21.39 skrev Martijn Faassen:

> Sebastian Ware wrote:
>> I am very happy that you like it. If nobody (Martijn?) pulls the  
>> plug I hope to be able to implement this within the next couple of  
>> weeks. Just need to discuss implementation details.
>
> Finally got the chance to look at it. Good progress! I am not going  
> to pull any plugs. Thanks very much for persevering.
>
> The main issue of debate between me and Sebastian remains Grok  
> himself. Sebastian makes some points:
>
> * the old grok images are not very suitable to website layout. I  
> concede this point.
>
> * I'm not sure I get this second point correctly: the new  
> vectorized grok is better than the old grok, even if vectorized. We  
> need to kill our darling to make progress.
>
> As I mentioned before, last week I was at the DZUG conference.  
> Various people commented that they liked the Grok picture and I  
> think it's been doing much good in spreading the grok meme.  
> Original Grok has a lot of personality somehow. The new picture  
> seems to have a bit less personality, and its expression is a bit  
> more, um, mean (the combined smile/frown does this). The old Grok  
> has this innocent relaxed expression, which we can then combine for  
> humoristic effect with the Grok smashes picture:
>
> http://startifact.com/grok_smash.jpg
>
> Now spontaneously at the sprint surrounding the conference someone  
> started working on a vectorized version of the original Grok in  
> Illustrator. I didn't suggest it to him, he's just into vector  
> graphics and started to do the work. I also know Kevin Teague has  
> been doing work with original Grok. This to me is more evidence  
> that people really, um, grok the original Grok. What I saw when he  
> showed me wasn't complete, but he'd gotten quite far. I contacted  
> him just now to see whether he'll finish it. We can then add  
> "original Grok" to the Grok family.
>
> I realize that this discussion may amount to "painting the  
> bikeshed" to some, but it just seems strange to me that something  
> that has been inspiring quite a few people in the last half year is  
> something we should do away with.
>
> This should take nothing away from the great progress that has been  
> made by Sebastian. I certainly hope we can start integrating this  
> into grok.zope.org proper soon and I wouldn't want this point of  
> contention to be the cause of holding anything up.
>
> Regards,
>
> Martijn
>
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