Make and share your own clip art

[Surf's Up, as published in the St. John's Telegram on Thursday, March 20, 2008. Click here to read more columns.]

Clip art has often had a terrible reputation, although maybe it’s at least partially deserved: from the beginning, those drawings had a too-generic, too-bland, too-yech quality for those two-dimensional drawings to be taken seriously. If you wanted to scream to your coworkers that you put no effort and less thought into your presentation, clip art was your best ally.

There are, of course, some excellent ready-to-use art products out there. Here’s one that will broaden your palette, and allow you to put something back, should you be artistically inclined.

Open Clip Art Library
Here, clip art meets the open-source trend, with some interesting results. Members chip in what they like, with the understanding that the material can be used in the public domain. Alternatively, work can be licensed through a Creative Commons agreement that favours free use, but lets the creator retain copyright. There are hundreds of images to be downloaded here, and the quality of what I sampled looked pretty good. However, my big criticism comes down to usability. Even after the obligatory registration, I found I was taking far too much time to find and then see samples, and the search tool wasn’t working for me at all. I like the concept here, and hope it takes off; the interface and ease-of-use issues, though, must be addressed.

Elsewhere this week

2008 Bloggies
Here’s a tough one: just guess what the “Bloggies” are given to. Yep, blogs. The best in show. Click here to see the winners in a variety of categories, including best regional blogs (including Canadian), to gossip, photo, news and group-written blogs, among others. I was caught scratching my head in places; is the lolcats blog known as I Can Has Cheeseburger? (it posts funny pictures of cats, often with even funnier comments) really the best in the “topical” category? Jez askin, puddytat.

Rattling Books blog
Janet Russell and Rattling Books have been making high-quality audio versions of books, often with a Newfoundland connection, for almost five years. The companion blog is fun to keep up with, and includes regular links on the weekly ReDefine It competition, using words from the Dictionary of Newfoundland English.

Speed
A solitaire-style card game that pits you against the computer … but don’t be disheartened. If you pay close attention, you can make your moves before your automated opponent kicks into gear.

Garfield Minus Garfield
What happens when you remove from the star from the show, or, in this case, the lasagna-munching cat Garfield from the comic strip of the same name? This blog airbrushes the cat out of the panels, leaving owner Jon alone with his anxieties and frustrations. As the author says, “Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life?” Hmmmm; not the most uplifting view of mental health, but they have a point.

Canada in a Box
What does Canada in a Box mean? Well, the subtitle of this online exhibit, from the Canadian Museum of Civilization, tells the story: “Cigar Containers that Store Our Past, 1883-1935.” Cigar smoking has long fallen out of favour as an everyday activity, so we don’t see cigar boxes with the frequency we once did. There are some real beauties here, with such character that even fervid non-smokers will want to have a peek.

John Gushue is a news writer for CBCNews.ca in St. John's. Site suggestions always welcome at surf at thetelegram.com. John is on Facebook right here.