Round One - Challenge Eight - Results
I am a horrible person for posting this so late (rusalkatrix was totally on time, just so you all know), but I wanted to do this final round justice in my critiques and I've been crazy busy. But my tardiness seems to have brought all our voters out of the woodwork, so I'm happy for that. ^.~
Congratulations to the first winners of project_icon! Everyone who participated did a truly wonderful job, and it's been a lot of fun for us to see how you all respond to the challenges and help each other. A round of applause to everyone!
Winners were chosen for this final round on the strength of their entries as a set, as well as individual icons.
OVERALL WINNER: becbet
PEOPLE'S CHOICE: anniereckless
PEOPLE'S CHOICE: snm_queen
PEOPLE'S CHOICE: becbet - tie
COMMENTARY:
snm_queen
GUNSHOU SAYS: This set is adorable, and I really love the use of rounded edges to compliment the round face of the manga character, echoed in the round emote button in 1b and the rounded speech bubble in 1e. The flipping channels in 1a, complete with channel numbers, is a stunning testament to your patience and skill with animation. 1b's split-frame and texture use is fantastic, with a great use of contrast in the black lines to draw the gaze to the character's welling eyes. And the silly and sweet charm of 1e is accented by the watercolor shades and pencil strokes. But the light textures in 1a and 1d overwhelm too much of the image. In 1a, that blur in the bottom right catches my attention and detracts from the oh-so-nifty animation. In 1d, the falling snow makes the image "alive", and so the blue light bubbles look to me like the landing beams of a UFO hovering over her poor head. 1c has lovely vibrant coloring, but I have no idea what's going on in the image (although now that I've read Trixi's commentary, I think the parallelism is a really neat idea). Perhaps setting the character/woman closer together would help - my brain sees the green between them as the image and their figures as the field, and it's hard for me to reverse it.
RUSALKATRIX SAYS: This set is extremely cute overall. The rounded rectangle borders complement the round face/round eyes of the little girl, maintaining the softness of the set; the circles (1b, 1d) work toward that as well. I like the subtle animation effects, especially in the hush icon (the channel-changing animation is really clever & cute). The images in the b&w icon are well chosen--the black & white brings the emotion to the forefront, and the emoticon is a great detail: it's meaningful, and it also balances the icon. The cheerfulness in 1e is contagious. ^^ My criticisms for the set involve the light-texture blurriness in 1a, and the difficult-to-discern "real person" in 1c. I love the clean, crisp lines of the manga art, but the blurriness takes away from that. In the real person icon, it took me a while to figure out that the woman is holding an umbrella (just like the manga character), and her face is covered--at first I thought it was someone crouching in a garden, with a brown scarf over her head. I love the idea of the mix (manga girl and real person mirror each other), but the effect is lost if we don't know what we're looking at. The bright colors on the top and bottom of the icon are visually appealing, but run the risk of overwhelming the main image & adding to the confusion.
becbet
GUNSHOU SAYS: This set feels the most cohesive to me, with the combination of colors, light washes, black contrast, and blindness. Even as they are arranged on the webpage, they compliment each other: the black space in 2a edges into 2b, the texture of 2b is hinted at by the crop in 2c, the lights in 2c flow into 2d, and the black bar in 2d is repeated in 2e. I love each icon individually as well, and the creative blocking of each subject's eyes creates a somber sense of mystery. The angle of 2a's border nicely balances the angle of the crop, and tilted just enough to not be stark as a vertical line. 2b is complicated, and could perhaps use more contrast on the camera so I know what I'm looking at, but the inner border works really well to bound the camera's boxy angles and draw focus. I was so distracted by the lovely crimson in 2c that I totally missed all the scary shit in that person's lip. The black bar over someone's eyes is a chancy technique, but it works to fantastic effect in 2d, perhaps because the bar crosses nearly the whole icon, almost as a divided image border. The crop in 2d is arresting - the character reaches out blindly, and with his eyes hidden, he looks terribly apprehensive about it. I know you were worried about 2e, but I think this is a great icon. The muted colors make the red warm and comforting in the blanket, and while she's naked and vulnerable beneath, her red lips belie the uncertainty of her pose. I'm not so thrilled with the text, although I agree that something needs to be there, and I like how the black bar accents her hair.
RUSALKATRIX SAYS: The use of vibrant colors, black accents, and high contrast (as well as the "sightless" theme) really ties this set together. Even though the subjects differ (videogame art, manga art, real person), when my eyes skim all five from left to right, it's clear that they belong together. There also seems to be a theme of melancholy or yearning running through the set: the sightlessness somehow makes each character/figure incomplete, or damaged--like they've lost something. I don't know that I'd look at it that way if I saw these icons individually, but taken together, I'm very struck by that, and it makes me look at each one a little longer than I might normally. I like the odd mix of blindness & sight in the b&w icon--we can't see the figure's eyes, they're hidden from us, but we can't hide from his camera. 2c is extremely disturbing (ack! Painful!), but the subject matter & the vibrant reds make it one of the most compelling icons in the set. 2d is disturbing too, but subtly--at least, if I'm seeing it right. It looks like the character is reaching for something, but because his vision is blotted out, he can't possibly know what he's going to get. I love the red lips & the pose in the final icon, and the way the text brings out how they're at odds with each other. The figure is hiding herself (both with the blanket & because we can't see her eyes), but there's an undercurrent of longing, too--she doesn't want to hide and be alone. If she did, she wouldn't have bothered with that lipstick. ^.~
anniereckless
GUNSHOU SAYS: There are lovely icons in this set, but they all seem somehow lifeless, with little of the magic that made the movies such gorgeous productions. The dying autumn colors of Rivendell are enhanced quite prettily in 3a, although Frodo is nearly lost in the image. 3b seems very flat to me, without enough contrast to make his frightened face interesting. I like 3c very much, with the soft white on the left providing that bit of uncertain haziness as Sam ventures further out of the Shire than he's ever gone. The colors in this icon are beautifully enhanced, with the green corn a great contrast to his bright hair and drab hobbit clothes. While I love the crop for 3d, and Gollum's pitiful expression is made even more heart-wrenching by that big blue eye in all that grey/white, the text actually makes my eyes hurt trying to focus. The white wash on the left also looks half-hearted - full opacity may have been more effective here. 3e is pretty, and I really like the crop, but the fairy-lights are a little distracting over the woods. They look better as they lay over the boat and top of the image, but the two closest to Frodo's face seem too bold for the icon.
RUSALKATRIX SAYS: I love that you managed to make all the restrictions work with such an inclusive theme, due to the mix of real & animated characters in the movie. ^^ The icons with the most impact are the close crops (3b, 3d), IMO. The expressions are well chosen and interesting--both convey strong emotions, and help the viewer to connect with them. I especially like the silvery tone in the b&w icon--it reminds me of a technique used to print photographs. (I can't think of the name of it just now.) A few criticisms: I like the distant crop of the hush icon, but my eye doesn't know where to rest; neither the figure nor the house really command my attention. I think it would work better if one or the other stood out as the dominant image. I like the caption in 3d (his eyes are so sad!), but the font seems a little too hard-edged for the emotion. Lastly, I'm not sure the dotted light textures work on the object icon. If there's something magical about the boat he's rowing or the lake he's rowing across (I haven't seen the movie, so I don't know), then the light textures work. If not, they seem (to me, anyway) a bit tacked on. A less "pretty" light texture--waves or blurred streaks instead of dots, colors that aren't pastel--might integrate better with the image.
OVERALL WINNER: irisxchan
PEOPLE'S CHOICE: dagas_isa
PEOPLE'S CHOICE: irisxchan
COMMENTARY:
irisxchan
GUNSHOU SAYS: A cute theme, done very well. I love 4a, with the shadows muting the bold balloon colors and matching the couple's pensive expressions. 4b is like a poster my ex-roommate had in our dorm in college - one of those noir French prints. My old eyes aren't good enough to read the text, and I like the way it fills the space at the bottom to prevent the head-cutting crop from looking like a mistake. A touch more contrast might help the image, though, and bring more attention to the whites of the couple's shirts to provide a better focus for the eye. 4c is lovely, from the sweetness of the image, to the gently enhanced colors, to the cute text accented with a bit of color in the box, to the light texture to provide a bit of whimsy. 4d's split focus is too busy for me - it took me a while to figure out what was happening on the right, since my gaze wanted to stop on the left-hand image. The bordering strip there looks out-of-place, the colors too different from the rest of the icon to be a smooth contrast. 4e is a really cute idea, but the sky isn't bright enough to backdrop the flowers. "Lorem ipsum" is dummy text (taken from a really long Latin document) used for layout mock-ups, so to see it on an icon like this is goofy - and a warning not to use text brushes in foreign languages unless you know what they mean. ^.^;
RUSALKATRIX SAYS: I really like the "two objects in one icon" theme--and the way it also translates to "couples/lovers/romance." Even the flowers seem to be in that category--they're close together, and one seems to be tilted toward the other, maybe admiring it? Cute. ^^ I love that you used very different techniques & accents in each icon, but still managed to tie them together with a strong theme. The colors in the hush icon are unusual/unnatural, but the balloons add whimsy and make the dominant blues & purples work. The strongest icons, for me, are the simplest: the crop in the b&w icon highlights the distance between the two figures, and starts to tell a story; the cut-out flowers against the sky backdrop & dotted line brush are light and fun. I also like the composition of the Sleeping Beauty icon--the two scenes, strolling & dancing, side by side--but it runs the risk of being too busy (with the texture, the light dots, and the split composition). I'd mask out the light dot by the Prince's face, or maybe lose the lights altogether to simplify things. I have a slight complaint about the text in 4b & 4e: it's almost tiny enough to serve as tiny text, but since I *can* read it, I'd like it to make more sense. 4b looks like a normal urban street, not a dark alley or somewhere moody enough to warrant that caption; and the flower icon is light-hearted and cute, so when I see Latin I'm like, "eh? what?" I like the text *style* on both, though.
dagas_isa
GUNSHOU SAYS: The wintry colors in this set really appeal to me, and make me look outside (where it's 60 degrees today) in disbelief. 5a and 5e are my favorites, with the gorgeous blues in both, and delicate and subtle light and brushwork. 5b would be stunning if her face weren't obscured by a brush - it looks like she's got unmentionable gunk on her nose - and if the contrast were higher to make her hair and eyes true black and stand out more from the background. I agree with rusalkatrix that the font is too harsh for the gentleness of the icon, although I like the text placement and use. 5c is pretty, but again is too washed out and pale to be really striking. A black and white gradient set to hard light (with the opacity lowered as needed) could really help to bring out the depths of the image without contrasting it so much that you lose detail. 5d is generic to me; some delicate color overlays or lights would add interest without making the image busier. 5e is adorable, but I think would work better without the top border - remember, icons don't have to be exact squares.
RUSALKATRIX SAYS: I love the soft chill that pervades this set. The textless icons are the strongest, especially 5a--I love the rich, beautiful blues, the soft white/gray of the snow and the faded edges. 5c and 5e also have a strong peaceful, almost magical atmosphere (the stardust brushes in 5c, the faded swirl brush in 5e), but I might adjust the crops by a few pixels. I'm not a huge fan of cutting off the tip of the nose (5c), and while I love the stretch of blue sky above the polar bear, I think the icon would feel more complete if the baby bear's face wasn't partially cut off. You could probably lose a section of the top white border, let us see more of the baby bear, & still keep the composition mostly intact. 5b and 5d, while appealing in their own right, are weakened by the hard, rigid text. This could simply be the way your program handles text (I'm not sure), but if that's the case, I'd advise going textless, because the impact of the captions (which I *do* like), are unlikely to compensate for a distracting font. Also, both 5b & 5d would benefit from simpler, thinner borders (you could even go borderless), since the icons contain a lot of elements. (A thick border tends to make everything look "packed in.")
Banners and prizes will be posted within the next week or so. If the overall winners have a preference for their prize-icons, let us know here. Otherwise, we'll pick from your interests lists.
Congratulations to the first winners of project_icon! Everyone who participated did a truly wonderful job, and it's been a lot of fun for us to see how you all respond to the challenges and help each other. A round of applause to everyone!
Winners were chosen for this final round on the strength of their entries as a set, as well as individual icons.
OVERALL WINNER: becbet
PEOPLE'S CHOICE: anniereckless
PEOPLE'S CHOICE: snm_queen
PEOPLE'S CHOICE: becbet - tie
COMMENTARY:
snm_queen
GUNSHOU SAYS: This set is adorable, and I really love the use of rounded edges to compliment the round face of the manga character, echoed in the round emote button in 1b and the rounded speech bubble in 1e. The flipping channels in 1a, complete with channel numbers, is a stunning testament to your patience and skill with animation. 1b's split-frame and texture use is fantastic, with a great use of contrast in the black lines to draw the gaze to the character's welling eyes. And the silly and sweet charm of 1e is accented by the watercolor shades and pencil strokes. But the light textures in 1a and 1d overwhelm too much of the image. In 1a, that blur in the bottom right catches my attention and detracts from the oh-so-nifty animation. In 1d, the falling snow makes the image "alive", and so the blue light bubbles look to me like the landing beams of a UFO hovering over her poor head. 1c has lovely vibrant coloring, but I have no idea what's going on in the image (although now that I've read Trixi's commentary, I think the parallelism is a really neat idea). Perhaps setting the character/woman closer together would help - my brain sees the green between them as the image and their figures as the field, and it's hard for me to reverse it.
RUSALKATRIX SAYS: This set is extremely cute overall. The rounded rectangle borders complement the round face/round eyes of the little girl, maintaining the softness of the set; the circles (1b, 1d) work toward that as well. I like the subtle animation effects, especially in the hush icon (the channel-changing animation is really clever & cute). The images in the b&w icon are well chosen--the black & white brings the emotion to the forefront, and the emoticon is a great detail: it's meaningful, and it also balances the icon. The cheerfulness in 1e is contagious. ^^ My criticisms for the set involve the light-texture blurriness in 1a, and the difficult-to-discern "real person" in 1c. I love the clean, crisp lines of the manga art, but the blurriness takes away from that. In the real person icon, it took me a while to figure out that the woman is holding an umbrella (just like the manga character), and her face is covered--at first I thought it was someone crouching in a garden, with a brown scarf over her head. I love the idea of the mix (manga girl and real person mirror each other), but the effect is lost if we don't know what we're looking at. The bright colors on the top and bottom of the icon are visually appealing, but run the risk of overwhelming the main image & adding to the confusion.
becbet
GUNSHOU SAYS: This set feels the most cohesive to me, with the combination of colors, light washes, black contrast, and blindness. Even as they are arranged on the webpage, they compliment each other: the black space in 2a edges into 2b, the texture of 2b is hinted at by the crop in 2c, the lights in 2c flow into 2d, and the black bar in 2d is repeated in 2e. I love each icon individually as well, and the creative blocking of each subject's eyes creates a somber sense of mystery. The angle of 2a's border nicely balances the angle of the crop, and tilted just enough to not be stark as a vertical line. 2b is complicated, and could perhaps use more contrast on the camera so I know what I'm looking at, but the inner border works really well to bound the camera's boxy angles and draw focus. I was so distracted by the lovely crimson in 2c that I totally missed all the scary shit in that person's lip. The black bar over someone's eyes is a chancy technique, but it works to fantastic effect in 2d, perhaps because the bar crosses nearly the whole icon, almost as a divided image border. The crop in 2d is arresting - the character reaches out blindly, and with his eyes hidden, he looks terribly apprehensive about it. I know you were worried about 2e, but I think this is a great icon. The muted colors make the red warm and comforting in the blanket, and while she's naked and vulnerable beneath, her red lips belie the uncertainty of her pose. I'm not so thrilled with the text, although I agree that something needs to be there, and I like how the black bar accents her hair.
RUSALKATRIX SAYS: The use of vibrant colors, black accents, and high contrast (as well as the "sightless" theme) really ties this set together. Even though the subjects differ (videogame art, manga art, real person), when my eyes skim all five from left to right, it's clear that they belong together. There also seems to be a theme of melancholy or yearning running through the set: the sightlessness somehow makes each character/figure incomplete, or damaged--like they've lost something. I don't know that I'd look at it that way if I saw these icons individually, but taken together, I'm very struck by that, and it makes me look at each one a little longer than I might normally. I like the odd mix of blindness & sight in the b&w icon--we can't see the figure's eyes, they're hidden from us, but we can't hide from his camera. 2c is extremely disturbing (ack! Painful!), but the subject matter & the vibrant reds make it one of the most compelling icons in the set. 2d is disturbing too, but subtly--at least, if I'm seeing it right. It looks like the character is reaching for something, but because his vision is blotted out, he can't possibly know what he's going to get. I love the red lips & the pose in the final icon, and the way the text brings out how they're at odds with each other. The figure is hiding herself (both with the blanket & because we can't see her eyes), but there's an undercurrent of longing, too--she doesn't want to hide and be alone. If she did, she wouldn't have bothered with that lipstick. ^.~
anniereckless
GUNSHOU SAYS: There are lovely icons in this set, but they all seem somehow lifeless, with little of the magic that made the movies such gorgeous productions. The dying autumn colors of Rivendell are enhanced quite prettily in 3a, although Frodo is nearly lost in the image. 3b seems very flat to me, without enough contrast to make his frightened face interesting. I like 3c very much, with the soft white on the left providing that bit of uncertain haziness as Sam ventures further out of the Shire than he's ever gone. The colors in this icon are beautifully enhanced, with the green corn a great contrast to his bright hair and drab hobbit clothes. While I love the crop for 3d, and Gollum's pitiful expression is made even more heart-wrenching by that big blue eye in all that grey/white, the text actually makes my eyes hurt trying to focus. The white wash on the left also looks half-hearted - full opacity may have been more effective here. 3e is pretty, and I really like the crop, but the fairy-lights are a little distracting over the woods. They look better as they lay over the boat and top of the image, but the two closest to Frodo's face seem too bold for the icon.
RUSALKATRIX SAYS: I love that you managed to make all the restrictions work with such an inclusive theme, due to the mix of real & animated characters in the movie. ^^ The icons with the most impact are the close crops (3b, 3d), IMO. The expressions are well chosen and interesting--both convey strong emotions, and help the viewer to connect with them. I especially like the silvery tone in the b&w icon--it reminds me of a technique used to print photographs. (I can't think of the name of it just now.) A few criticisms: I like the distant crop of the hush icon, but my eye doesn't know where to rest; neither the figure nor the house really command my attention. I think it would work better if one or the other stood out as the dominant image. I like the caption in 3d (his eyes are so sad!), but the font seems a little too hard-edged for the emotion. Lastly, I'm not sure the dotted light textures work on the object icon. If there's something magical about the boat he's rowing or the lake he's rowing across (I haven't seen the movie, so I don't know), then the light textures work. If not, they seem (to me, anyway) a bit tacked on. A less "pretty" light texture--waves or blurred streaks instead of dots, colors that aren't pastel--might integrate better with the image.
OVERALL WINNER: irisxchan
PEOPLE'S CHOICE: dagas_isa
PEOPLE'S CHOICE: irisxchan
COMMENTARY:
irisxchan
GUNSHOU SAYS: A cute theme, done very well. I love 4a, with the shadows muting the bold balloon colors and matching the couple's pensive expressions. 4b is like a poster my ex-roommate had in our dorm in college - one of those noir French prints. My old eyes aren't good enough to read the text, and I like the way it fills the space at the bottom to prevent the head-cutting crop from looking like a mistake. A touch more contrast might help the image, though, and bring more attention to the whites of the couple's shirts to provide a better focus for the eye. 4c is lovely, from the sweetness of the image, to the gently enhanced colors, to the cute text accented with a bit of color in the box, to the light texture to provide a bit of whimsy. 4d's split focus is too busy for me - it took me a while to figure out what was happening on the right, since my gaze wanted to stop on the left-hand image. The bordering strip there looks out-of-place, the colors too different from the rest of the icon to be a smooth contrast. 4e is a really cute idea, but the sky isn't bright enough to backdrop the flowers. "Lorem ipsum" is dummy text (taken from a really long Latin document) used for layout mock-ups, so to see it on an icon like this is goofy - and a warning not to use text brushes in foreign languages unless you know what they mean. ^.^;
RUSALKATRIX SAYS: I really like the "two objects in one icon" theme--and the way it also translates to "couples/lovers/romance." Even the flowers seem to be in that category--they're close together, and one seems to be tilted toward the other, maybe admiring it? Cute. ^^ I love that you used very different techniques & accents in each icon, but still managed to tie them together with a strong theme. The colors in the hush icon are unusual/unnatural, but the balloons add whimsy and make the dominant blues & purples work. The strongest icons, for me, are the simplest: the crop in the b&w icon highlights the distance between the two figures, and starts to tell a story; the cut-out flowers against the sky backdrop & dotted line brush are light and fun. I also like the composition of the Sleeping Beauty icon--the two scenes, strolling & dancing, side by side--but it runs the risk of being too busy (with the texture, the light dots, and the split composition). I'd mask out the light dot by the Prince's face, or maybe lose the lights altogether to simplify things. I have a slight complaint about the text in 4b & 4e: it's almost tiny enough to serve as tiny text, but since I *can* read it, I'd like it to make more sense. 4b looks like a normal urban street, not a dark alley or somewhere moody enough to warrant that caption; and the flower icon is light-hearted and cute, so when I see Latin I'm like, "eh? what?" I like the text *style* on both, though.
dagas_isa
GUNSHOU SAYS: The wintry colors in this set really appeal to me, and make me look outside (where it's 60 degrees today) in disbelief. 5a and 5e are my favorites, with the gorgeous blues in both, and delicate and subtle light and brushwork. 5b would be stunning if her face weren't obscured by a brush - it looks like she's got unmentionable gunk on her nose - and if the contrast were higher to make her hair and eyes true black and stand out more from the background. I agree with rusalkatrix that the font is too harsh for the gentleness of the icon, although I like the text placement and use. 5c is pretty, but again is too washed out and pale to be really striking. A black and white gradient set to hard light (with the opacity lowered as needed) could really help to bring out the depths of the image without contrasting it so much that you lose detail. 5d is generic to me; some delicate color overlays or lights would add interest without making the image busier. 5e is adorable, but I think would work better without the top border - remember, icons don't have to be exact squares.
RUSALKATRIX SAYS: I love the soft chill that pervades this set. The textless icons are the strongest, especially 5a--I love the rich, beautiful blues, the soft white/gray of the snow and the faded edges. 5c and 5e also have a strong peaceful, almost magical atmosphere (the stardust brushes in 5c, the faded swirl brush in 5e), but I might adjust the crops by a few pixels. I'm not a huge fan of cutting off the tip of the nose (5c), and while I love the stretch of blue sky above the polar bear, I think the icon would feel more complete if the baby bear's face wasn't partially cut off. You could probably lose a section of the top white border, let us see more of the baby bear, & still keep the composition mostly intact. 5b and 5d, while appealing in their own right, are weakened by the hard, rigid text. This could simply be the way your program handles text (I'm not sure), but if that's the case, I'd advise going textless, because the impact of the captions (which I *do* like), are unlikely to compensate for a distracting font. Also, both 5b & 5d would benefit from simpler, thinner borders (you could even go borderless), since the icons contain a lot of elements. (A thick border tends to make everything look "packed in.")
Banners and prizes will be posted within the next week or so. If the overall winners have a preference for their prize-icons, let us know here. Otherwise, we'll pick from your interests lists.