Presentation-wise, we have a nice template that fits the look and feel of Fedora and we have those little graphics named "hackergotchi" which are ...not perfect. So that's the purpose of this article: talk about them, give a few hints about how they can be improved and show some examples.
A dry definition from Wikipedia sounds like this: "A hackergotchi is a picture of a writer used as an avatar to identify the author of a given web feed in blog aggregators" and also according to Wikipedia they were somewhat invented by Jimmac (BTW, I am still speechless in awe by the news about him joining Red Hat maybe is still hope for GNOME 3 to not become a turd?). In practice they are disembodied hacker heads floating next to one's blog post, to help identify and make a personal connection with the author.
Years ago I tried to improve their state and did what I was able to do: created a default icon for those who do not have an image, wrote a small tutorial about creating your own hackergotchi and created a wiki page where those who can to it themselves can place a request. I advertised those on Planet, but failed to do the next step: proactively contact people with bad, poor or unsuitable hackergotchis and inform them about their options. I suck.
Now I passed the hackergotchi maintenance torch to Pierros who, as a junior member of the Design Team needed an entry task so I can pretend to have an eldery status and make judgements on quality and pass advices. And be self pretentious.
From a technical point of view a hackergotchi is a small PNG image with transparent background, so it can work regardless of the page background, usually depicting the head of the person with no background and having a drop-shadow to make it stand-out better in the page. Historically I used to make them 96x96 pixels, people who did themselves used whatever sizes they thought of but recently Pierros proposed, and we agreed, to move to a new standard size, 120x120, which should be small enough to not alter the layout but large enough to give a better image, so you can actually recognize the person when meeting face to face. Also, when cutting your face on the contour, leave out your neck or body.
From an artistic/photographic point of view you need a good photo: as the image is supposed to represent you, it must show your personality, so don't use photos like they are used for your passport/id card/driver license, use something to show your soul. Try to take the photo with a good camera, using the crappy one made with your cell phone may be usable if you have the perfect light, get a lucky angle and the stars are aligned, but most of the time not even the most experienced GIMP wizard will have a hard time with it and the result will not be great. When taking the photo is a good idea to use a plain, seamless background so the work is easier and if your hair is curly, fluffy or long to have it hung together (you know how hard is to cut the hair's contour?).
If I scared you with the instructions above, here is the sugar-coating: we have a service where the Design Team will do the work for you if you provide an image! Go to our ticketing system and put a new request, select "hackergotchi request" as the type at the top of the ticket and attach or link to a photo (please, see above what is a good photo).
At the latest IRC meeting, when I was tasked with this article we considered a good addition would be a list of examples of good hackergotchis, but as the creator of many of those images I wanted to avoid bias, so Mo helped me with a list with what she consider good samples (I don't necessarily agree with her selection), which I will try to comment and highlight the strong points, so here we go:
A closing conclusion? Yeah, is the time, I feel like I already bored everyone: rules? yes, they are usually good, but when you have a vision, forget about them, go crazy and show the real you. And take all I said with a grain of salt, after all I am the one using currently as hackergotchi the drawing below:
Update: Jef just provided a template small howto for adding badges to your hackergotchi, adding the link as it is an useful reference.
Great post. There have been some truly bizarre and on some occasions quite scary hackergotchi's on aggregated sites and feeds recently, having someone clearly state a defined set of parameters for them was much needed. Appreciate you doing this!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you.
ReplyDeleteAlthough having a cool hackergotchi isn't easy, at least there should be a guideline to avoid absurd oversized avatars that mess the planet layout.
Is not easy but is not difficult either, it can be a good learning experience and a compelling intro to GIMP for someone interested.
ReplyDeleteWe understand not everybody want or can edit images, so this is why we are providing the service - I have some experience already and if provided with an acceptable image, for me is about 5-10 minutes of work.
Cool post! :)
ReplyDeleteI'll probably add another post to the Planet about the Hackergotchi Ribbons later tonight or tomorrow. I'll let you know when I do, maybe you could add a link here?
@Schendje: we should probably also link to all this stuff from somewhere in the wiki so the info is easier to find.
ReplyDelete@Nicu: yep, definitely. We should discuss that at the meeting or on the mailing list. :)
ReplyDeleteHere's my blog post: http://jefsblog.wordpress.com/2010/07/04/introducing-hackergotchi-ribbons/
@Schendje: post updated with your link, thanks
ReplyDeleteAt the Marketing FAD, Henrik and Russell brought their cameras and set up a nice portrait booth - I'd love to see that at the next FUDCon! I think we have at least one (if not many more) photo enthusiasts in each geo...
ReplyDelete@Mel: definitely! and the "portrait booth" is just a clean, white wall (ideally it would have also at least 2 light sources, but I won't carry my gear on the plane,is heavy and fragile)
ReplyDelete