Having a lot of fun with this goofy idea for a drawing, and experimenting with inking in Illustrator as opposed to Photoshop. It’s going to be a learning experience, but I’m excited about the final image and about the process to get there.
10/17/2010
Thoughts on Demographic Relevant Search
The other day, researching for an illustration, I did a simple Google Image search for “Cute Bra” and got a mess of largely very erotic, often pornographic images. This, I think, illustrates the need for demographic based search, bringing more relevant information to searchers.
In 2008, a story broke that RushmoreDrive (now defunct) was being developed as “a search engine for black people.” And, naturally, the internet was there to roll its collective eyes and post pictures of lolcats saying “your doing it wrong.”(sic)
However, this technology is a sound idea and very, very necessary. Google searches are all about relevance, and one search can’t be relevant to us all. Certainly, if I search for “svchost.exe” or “English Wikipedia,” I’m almost certainly going to be looking for nearly the same thing that everybody else is looking for.
But, I did a search for “Cute Bra” on my girlfriend’s pink iPhone and got very similar searches. Women should be able to search for “Cute Bras” and not have to look at pornography. The searches are probably not relevant to them.
The same way Rushmore Drive hoped to bring more relevant searches to black users, Google et. al. should put effort into bringing relevant searches to different demographics. The best illustration I of this was a basic search for “hair care” or “hair product.” Obviously a Black person and nearly every other ethnic group on earth would need a different hair care product, and would have to trudge through pages of hair care results irrelevant to them to find them.
Current search engines marginalize nearly everyone that isn’t searching for what Google thinks is the result people should be looking for. And it is far from perfect. Pages with high “pagerank” can knock more relevant sites off of the first SERPs in an instant.
Basically, I view this as an important step in the evolution of search engines. Whether we are months, years, or decades away from more user and demographic relevant searches, I don’t know. But for now, our blessed internet is full to the brim with pornography, competing for keywords women use to shop for underwear, and nobody wins. We sell less porn, less cute underwear, and users get surprised with orgasming sluts and penises.
10/10/2010
TPA Drink and Draw October Meeting
Great night at the Tampa Drink and Draw Social Club last night. Good folks, good laughs, good fun.
A friend asked for a “Theme” and I suggested “Unfortunate Robot Masters.”
Then he asked me to draw Shatner dressed like Leeloo from The Fifth Element. I’m not crazy about the likeness.
I think with some tweaking this can become another candidate for the Robot-Girl Army.
My girlfriend drew this and the hipster giraffe at the top of the page.
And I am still working on this Ars Gratia Awesome Illustration. The dino skulls look super awesome, though.
10/04/2010
10/03/2010
How Printing Inks are Made
How Ink Is Made
Uploaded by h0nki. - Discover more animation and arts videos.
An excellent video about how printing inks are made. These inks are similar to the ones I work with everyday. I love this so much.
10/02/2010
Gameboy, NES, and Sega Color Palettes
After my article Create Cool 8-Bit Style Pixel Art from Ordinary Images went up on How-To Geek, a commenter pointed me to a great Wikipedia link, showing the color palettes available to classic game systems. I’ve managed to use these in creating images in the same style as the article. Check HTG for a followup using these color palettes within a few weeks.
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