20th Anniversary T-Shirt Design Contest

[Shlomi Fish]

Hi Constantine,

first of all, thanks for your effort. I'm commenting what I feel about your 
image in public - I hope it's OK. Good luck in the competition.

On Saturday 07 May 2011 16:02:35 Constantine Shulyupin wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am designing image  for annual Linux.com Store T-shirt design
> contest: http://www.linux.com/tshirt-design-contest
> 
> The draft of the image is here: http://www.makelinux.net/art/20y/
> 
> Can you please give me your feedback to improve the image?
> Please note, I am not professional graphics designer. It is just hobby.
> 

Well, for professional vs. amateur see:

http://www.paulgraham.com/opensource.html

An amateur used to mean someone who does what they do for love of their 
art/craft/science/etc. instead (or in addition to) money, and was actually a 
compliment. I consider myself an amateur for many fields, and while a 
professional is often a good idea, the open-minded professionals can still 
sometimes learn from amateurs. I asked someone with a Ph.D. in psychotherapy 
and a lot of experience in dealing with patients, and he agreed with me that 
there are some things he can still learn from people with little experience in 
psychotherapy. That's the way it is.

Well, back to the image, and I'm not an expert graphics designer either:

1. In general, I think it's nice. I don't think I could have ever created such 
a well-drawn aesthetic penguin myself. :-) (At least not using a mouse, which 
I find unsuitable for that.).

2. I think the feet of the penguin are a bit too unrealistic.

3. I don't like the fade-to-white gradients - they obstruct recognising the 
view. Maybe try a different gradient, perhaps from one colour to the other.

4. "20Y" is too obscure. Maybe say "20" with a smaller years.

5. I find the Penguin too unrealistic, cartoony and it seems to generate a 
negative impression in me. Maybe try making it more positive. The original Tux 
the penguin image by Larry Ewing ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tux ) is cute 
and adorable and make us emphasise with Linux and identify with it.

----

These are the things off the top of my head.

Shabath Shalom, and enjoy the Memorial Day and the Israeli Independence Day.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

P.S: in a self-promotion, you may wish to take a look at
http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/Selena-Mandrake/ , which is a screenplay I've 
begun writing that aims to be a supernatural dramedie, and one of my most 
farfetched pieces yet. I've only written the first few scenes, but I have a 
solid idea for more stuff there. 

Furthermore, if you have a kindle, you may wish to buy the Kindle version of 
"The Enemy and How I Helped to Fight it":

http://www.amazon.com/Enemy-How-Helped-Fight-ebook/dp/B004YTSWS0/ref=sr_1_1

The price is higher than what I wanted, but if you want, you can read the 
story on my site, and just comment about it for future generations (and maybe 
make a smaller donation to my PayPal account).

-- 
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Shlomi Fish       http://www.shlomifish.org/
My Aphorisms - http://www.shlomifish.org/humour.html

C++ is complex, complexifying and complexified.
(With apologies to the Oxford English Dictionary).

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