No logo

So there we were...

...well on our way with the Quakr project to create a 3d world from user contributed photographs.

But we had no website.

And no logo.

The problem was this:
When your intention is to show the real world in all its depth and complexity, almost any logo looks ... well ... flat and mundane.

Eureka! Make a logo, and physically place it somewhere in this beautiful world and photograph it.

Hang on, maybe there already is a photo on flickr we could use?

Hmmm... Maybe if our project was called 'One way' or 'Keep off the grass' that might be possible. Finding a photo of 'Quakr' is probably a bit far fetched.

But... there are many photos of individual l e t t e r s.

Excellent - we'll do that.
Our logo will change every time!
Other people will design our logo afresh every time!
We'll be using photographers from around the world all pulled together to build something bigger.
What could be more appropriate?

But how can we engineer this? (skip this if you have no interest in the technical nitty-gritty)

Step 1: Use the flickr api from perl to grab the photos and spit out the appropriate HTML.
Step 2: Meet the creative commons obligations for the photos under their attribution licence by listing the owners.
Step 3: Realise that to do this will suck up a lot of the screen real estate.
Step 4: Use the fantastic script.aculo.us JavaScript library to scroll through these in a much smaller space.
Step 5: Realise that the script.aculo.us Effect.ScrollTo currently only allows scrolling of the entire page, and not of a div within it (this would make the photos scroll off the page!).
Step 5: Write a script.aculo.us-style Effect.ScrollDivTo effect to achieve what we want (shortly to be contributed back)
Step 6: Make the whole shebang easy to deploy... say, by insertion of a single line of HTML into a page.
Step 7: Make the service available to everybody.
Step 8: Sit back, relax, panic and bug fix, relax again and tell the world.

Phew! So there you have it. And here. And here (look up).


It is tentatively called a Flickr Phrase (better suggestions on a postcard please).

It was as good an excuse as any to play around with the current Web 2.0 toys. And dare I say it, it looks pretty fine. I could sit here for hours hitting f5.

Want one?

It's free. It's easy. Check out the Flickr Phrase two step howto and you'll be set within minutes.

So, what are you waiting for?
Roll up. Satisfaction guaranteed.