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List:       kde-artists
Subject:    Re: K-ARTIST:konqueror icon
From:       Jos van den Oever <oever () fenk ! wau ! nl>
Date:       2002-06-13 11:18:16
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Hello Torsten,

> Actually the artist didn't "fail" to realize this one (as the artist was
> actually involved quite a lot in creating maps of the earth and the sky and
> as the artist loves globes a lot).

The idea for the globe is really cool, lovely universal!

> There are several reasons why the artist kept the icon like this:
>
> - The "true" tilt of the rotation axis against the ecliptical plane is
> about 23,5 °. It's not really possible to paint a good looking easy to
> recognize KDE stylish gear with tooths tilted that way. Therefore we have
> to cheat reality here anyways.
>
> - Not only reduces the tilt of about 23,5° the recognizability of the
> continents etc. a lot - with a tilt of 45° it becomes even worse: It's
> really hard to recognize the continents at an unfamiliar angle of 45
> degrees ...

I understand your first argument, for small icons at least. The ecliptical 
plane is not in the picture, so it's ok. But you did draw an axis. and it's 
21.5° off with respect to the earth. That's quite serious. You are right that 
a tilted earth is a bit more difficult to recognize, but the cogwheel, the 
axis and the colours should bring the message across. Also looking at the 
world from a different angle can be very healthy.

> If you play with the pictures a bit yourself you might come to the same
> conclusion that cheating reality a bit like I did gives best results for
> usability and looks. The "other" more realistic solution would of course be
> 100% scientifically correct - but keep in mind how long it took until
> people realized this "problem" and put it up on this mailinglist ;-)

Absolutely true! I've had this icon on my screen for about a year before I saw 
it. However, now I know, the flawed logic does irritate me. Should we distort 
reality to have better pictures?

Best regards, Jos

PS: how come America is up front? Now I can't see the world cup. :-)
Oh well. Wir sind nicht dabei.

> Tackat
>
> PS: actually I dealt about 1-2 hours with this problem myself until I
> produced the final version of this icon ....
>
> > > revolves around this axis, so the picture of the earth should be
> > > tilted, so that the axis runs through the northpole and the southpole.
> > >
> > > For a larger example, see:
> > > http://www.konqueror.org/pics/konq_about.png
> > >
> > > Best regards, Jos
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > kde-artists mailing list
> > > kde-artists@mail.kde.org
> > > http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-artists
> >
> > luci

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