[TriZPUG] Project Night Recap - Look What I Made!

[Jesse]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL3ZIc5IL2w&feature=player_detailpage#t=12s

On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 12:51 PM, Chris Calloway <cbc at unc.edu> wrote:

> On 8/10/2012 12:00 PM, Tristan wrote:
>
>> I'm no snake expert, but the wider lobs at the back of the heads suggest
>> venomous snake to me.  Maybe a more rounded, oval-is head?  Otherwise
>> pretty cool.
>>
>
> This is the one thing that has always bothered me about Python logos, the
> fact that there are always snakes involved. Do I really want snakes in my
> code? And I really hate snakes. Icko. Yet, it's hard to get away from.
> Snakes have become recognizably associated with Python visually.
>
> I was hanging some with Jim while he was working on the logo at project
> night. At that time the snake heads were just circles, and I understood
> them less as snakes at the point. I suggested to Jim that the circles be
> elongated to look like snake heads, which he did and then I could get them
> as snakes. The way he elongated them was to look like actual python heads,
> which have a very identifiable silhouette:
>
> http://pycon.ca/
> http://www.naturephoto-cz.com/**photos/sevcik/rock-python--**
> python-molurus.jpg<http://www.naturephoto-cz.com/photos/sevcik/rock-python--python-molurus.jpg>
> http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_F-**afRliGhnA/TQpZpreld9I/**
> AAAAAAAAAQE/JjYcWablNmw/s320/**GreenPythonSnake.jpg<http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_F-afRliGhnA/TQpZpreld9I/AAAAAAAAAQE/JjYcWablNmw/s320/GreenPythonSnake.jpg>
>
> Now, the thing is, python snakes are actually not venomous. The do their
> damage by constricting. But, of course, if you hate snakes as much as I do,
> this is not what you are thinking about when looking at a python.
> Nonvenomous is not conveyed as a message. It just looks menacing and
> dangerous. Like something that is going to squeeze the life out of me and
> my code.
>
> So I went and looked at a bunch of pictures of nonvenomous snakes:
>
> http://www.stewart.army.mil/**dpw/fish/nonvenomous_snakes.**htm<http://www.stewart.army.mil/dpw/fish/nonvenomous_snakes.htm>
>
> And you know, their heads all come in two shapes:
>
> a) arrowhead-like, like the python's, and
> b) nubs, like no shape at all, just a tapering of the body at the end.
>
> There were some where the nubs were a little fatter, like a rounder
> arrowhead or a half-oval. But there were no just plain oval heads. But some
> of the most venomous snakes of all have nub heads. Snakes are just menacing
> period.
>
> And so I think an oval head would be less identifiable as a snake than the
> snake head-like shape. Snakes don't have oval heads, so we don't think of
> snake when we see an oval at the end of a segment. It would be more like
> when the heads were just circles and I couldn't tell they were snakes.
>
> And I think that by now, there are so many Python as snake visual
> metaphors out there, that we've come to some sort of "friendly snake"
> shapes:
>
> http://www.allfreevectors.com/**images/Free%20Vector%20Snake%**
> 20Friendly654.jpg<http://www.allfreevectors.com/images/Free%20Vector%20Snake%20Friendly654.jpg>
> http://www.how-to-draw-**cartoons-online.com/image-**
> files/cartoon_snake.gif<http://www.how-to-draw-cartoons-online.com/image-files/cartoon_snake.gif>
>
> like the official Python logo where the snakes are kind of abstracted or
> cartoon-ified. It's a way to take menacing and turn it in your favor, such
> that a silhouette of a python head has kind of lost its menace, especially
> when you realize that, oh, it's the Python >language<, not something that's
> going to kill me (or is it?)
>
> A way to abstract a python head silhouette might be to make it an oval.
> But I would have to see that. If Jim is working by committee, I'd wanna see
> it side by side. Because when it was a circle, it looked more like a
> silhouette of something else I won't mention here, but somebody else picked
> right up on that. Changing it to a python silhouette made the unfortunate
> association go away.
>
> Did I say that in a non-threatening your-ideas-are-valid-too kind of way?
> I hope so. Because I agree about the basic sentiment of snakes not being
> the best mascots. Jim had advised me on a new PyCamp logo (one that doesn't
> look like a boot in your face), and all I asked was that it not have
> snakes. But I think snakes have become kind of unavoidable when thinking
> visually about Python. And snakes pair up nicely with triskelions.
>
>
> --
> Sincerely,
>
> Chris Calloway http://nccoos.org/Members/cbc
> office: 3313 Venable Hall   phone: (919) 599-3530
> mail: Campus Box #3300, UNC-CH, Chapel Hill, NC 27599
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-- 
Jesse Bikman
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