<div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 3:41 PM, Jim Simmons <<a href="mailto:nicestep@gmail.com">nicestep@gmail.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> I am working on a new Activity that will connect to the Internet Archive and act as a sort of electronic card catalog. It will be similar to the offline catalog browsing feature of Read Etexts, but will have much more information about the books, including language and a free form description. It will be an online catalog, not offline. It will be able to download books to the Journal in either PDF or DJVU format for use by the core Read Activity. Attached is a GIF version of my icon for this Activity. The original is a .svg of course. Artistically I think it is the finest icon I have ever done, but I have some doubts about it: 1). Will the target audience (learners and younger teachers) recognize the object the icon is mean to resemble? (Would they recognize the ones for Read Etexts or View Slides)? 2). Is there a better image to convey what the Activity does? And if so, could I con somebody into drawing it for me? If you feel you have the needed artistic talent all you need to make an SVG icon is the free Inkscape program, available for both Linux and Windows. Create a New 48x48 icon. Draw it with strokes and empty but enclosed areas that could be filled in. No gradients or anything fancy. If you're looking for something to do in an hour drawing icons could be that activity. Artistic skill and programming skill are seldom both found in the same person. Of course there are exceptions. James Simmons _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) <a href="mailto:IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org">IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org</a> <a href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep" target="_blank">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep</a></blockquote><div> Sorry to offer a negative review, but I struggled to understand the image at the small size and perspective. Perspective recognition can difficult for anything but the simplest object. It took me a second look in another context to figure out what the final object was. The animation might be interesting the first few times, but may easily become a distraction. Icons are best when they are instantly recognized and display a token of what's to come, not too much information. The letters, I A , conveyed that there was textual content, but the initials would not match the name in other languages, and be another burden to change. Thank you for you contributing and braving your art! --Fred </div></div>