New Smilies!

[PonderThis]

I'm thinking of replacing our current stock smilies with some cartoon style smilies.

This is the current happy face:
Possible new happy face:
Or maybe a bit bigger:
A bit bigger still:

This is the current very happy face:
Possible new very happy face:
Or maybe a bit bigger:
A bit bigger still:

Or is it all just:
Or maybe a bit bigger:
A bit bigger still:

I dunno. It's enough to make me cry:
Possible new crying face:
Or maybe a bit bigger:
A bit bigger still:

[Skimba]

I like the fact that they are more cartoonish than the others. Maybe a little bigger, yes. The pointy ones that we currently have bother my brain.
Barfy is awesome.

[Binkatron5000]

YAYAYAYAYAY!

[sum yun gai]

[PonderThis]

OK, I added several different sizes to that top post for comparison.

Pros and Cons that I see:
15x15: Pro: Fits inline with text. Con: A bit hard to make out.
18x18: Pro: Easier to make out: Con: They're a bit bigger than the line they're in so will cause lines with smilies to be offset a smidge.
20x20: Pro: Much easier to make out: Con: Really offsets the line. Doesn't seem to fit at all.

I'm not sure which works best, so I made this thread into a poll. All the smilies original source are vector-based Illustrator files so they can in theory be resized to just about anything.

[Null]

Is there a reason to use generic yellow ball type smilies? What about something a bit more spamusing, such as the famed happy sun for a smiley? Or maybe a contest by some of the artists here.

I rarely use the durned things myself.

[ntw3001]

I have 100% of the vote!

I voted for the small ones because they are text sized. Null's plan of sun-themed smileys is also good. I guess they could be like little yellow circles with faces, or something.

[PonderThis]

Is there a reason to use generic yellow ball type smilies?

Yes, there is. I decided wanted to customize the smilies a bit to give a unique feel to the place, but without changing the character of the existing smilies by too much, so that old posts change their meaning.

I didn't want to have a contest or worse pick different people to do different smilies. Smilies need to be simple and as unambiguous as possible. They should all follow the same style so that any given artist's impression of art becomes more important than what the smilie itself is trying to convey.

So I found a pack of 9 smilies on some web site and paid $5 for it. I added color so they resemble the current smilies a bit more, then expanded the collection by taking bits and pieces of different smilies and combining them, or adding simple features, like sunglasses to make the "cool" smilie. I then added the barfy smilie because, frankly, I always wanted one.

And that is the story of how the cartoon smilies came to be.

[chrismachine]

I would actually like our avatar pictures to be a bit bigger. not monstrous, but a touch bigger.

[EvilJekyll]

[Clueless]

How about keeping the old ones (the old, non-pointy ones) and add a bunch of new stuff? then we can add stuff like the delightfully deranged happy sun, or perhaps a grimace with his stabby knife etc.

[Nyperold]

Ooh, yeah, and maybe tiny versions of Cabinet Sanchez, Eggplant Mike, Troy Powell, etc.

[traubster]

This poll makes me wanna

Smilies are so 2000s

[Clueless]

Ooh, yeah, and maybe tiny versions of Cabinet Sanchez, Eggplant Mike, Troy Powell, etc.

Exaxtly! etc.

[EvilJekyll]

[sum yun gai]

hmm... i guess it's just about the same size as the circle heads but slightly smaller than pointy heads

[jvcc]

You were wrong,

[Saltine]

Wow, nice.

[PonderThis]

OK, it's been tied up since Friday so I decided to go with the more conservative option and stay with the current size (15x15).

I've replaced the smilies, but smilies in old posts have not changed. I tried the CTL+F5 thing but no change. I wonder if there's some sort of lag?

So anyways here we are.

[Binkatron5000]

SUPER

[EvilJekyll]

Troy is hard to make:
Eggplant mike is ok I guess:

Ponder would have to make these transparent pngs to have them icons if you guys wanted.

[EsBe]

What if we used CSS to give smilies a negative margin-top, so we can use slightly oversized ones without breaking the flow of text? That'd free up room for the more exotic Spamusement smilies.

Also, 20px-square smilies checking in:



I also went trawling through old Spamusements and guest strips for characters to turn into smilies, but all I ended up with was this guy from an old comic of mine. Others like Payday and Snickers or this cool dude proved too dense to be resized to 20x20 and still be recognizable. Maybe I can manually draw Mr. Payday though.

[PonderThis]

Here's a simple 15x15 version of Troy made via a simple crop-n-resize from the original cartoon:

[Dusk]

Nooo I didn't get to vote.
I guess this size is best for, you know, people who still use Netscape in Win95 800x600 or something. I'm not really being facetious there. I know it still happens.

Troy is hard to make:

That looks like a fetus or something.

So.. can we.. submit possible new icons?

(later)
Huh. Looks like I lost all my old website stuff with the last hard disk. Carry on.