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Seems like I’ve started a rather interesting discussion over at the Computer Arts Forum about the use of Open Source software in design.

I think that the general consensus is that Open Source software apps such as Inkscape, GIMP and Blender will never replace their industry standard counterparts because there’s nothing wrong with these products in the first place. FOSS packages such as Open Office and Firefox (and to a lesser extent Ubuntu) have only really gained popularity because their counterparts are kinda rubbish. Neither Microsoft Office or Internet Exploder are as standards compliant as their FOSS counterparts and, in relation to Microsoft Office, you can save a lot of money by using Open Office that, whilst it has its flaws, offers very similar functionality to Microsoft’s product at zero percent of the cost! Brilliant!

When I start planning workshops soon, I’m still going to plan them assuming that they don’t have the necessary software (not all schools have Photoshop-like software) so will offer the use of FOSS packages. I think education is where Open Source will find its place in terms of design. What do you all think?

Completed this a few days ago

It was originally going to include text, but I couldn’t get them to work in harmony. Oh well, another challenge for me!

Completed this one recently

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I’m liking the way this style is going, but I want to incorporate people and other objects into it, rather than just abstract objects and text. It’s proving challenging to make the two work together, but it’ll happen with more practice ;-)

a.a.s did a performance at the Crowd6 event Mingling and Mistletoe on Saturday evening. It involved us dancing around a Christmas tree whilst vaguely chanting the theme from a popular product and then spewing our guts all over the tree. We then crawled back to our cave whilst blood dripped from our guts creating a pool of festive gore for onlookers to gaze at. Wonderful!

Here’s a video of the performance courtesy of Ana Artstalking (who’s review you can read here). Enjoy!

My friend Mez informed me that Amarok, the popular media player for Linux and Unix systems is starting its own radio station, imaginatively called Radio Amarok. Whilst I didn’t want to design the website, I did have the pleasure of designing a new logo. After various attempts the panel chose this design: