(Image by karlnorling via Creative Commons)
With a short week, just a few things to mention. First of all, if you haven’t seen the Nishi piece above, you probably should before you have to stand in line in rain/snow. Nishi built a living room at the top of the Columbus Circle monument and made it look like Columbus is standing on a coffee table in the room’s center. Whatever else you might say about Mr. Columbus, these people are lounging on what appear to be very comfy couches…
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FEATURED TIP: CHANGING YOUR AVATAR
With over 4,000 OpenLab members (yay!) we wanted to take a moment to remind you that nothing personalizes your OpenLab presence like an avatar that isn’t one of those grey blobs you see above. We’d like to make a concerted push to have everyone replace those with more interesting images. It doesn’t have to be your face if you don’t want, any image will do, and as a result you’ll be easier to find and the OpenLab will be a (literally) more colorful place.
You can find instructions on how to change your personal avatar here, and how to change it for a course, project or club here. (Surprise! They’re nearly the same!)
But at least as important is this site, which filters out images that are under copyright, and leaves only images you are free to use anywhere on the OpenLab. You sometimes need to add the sort of acknowledgment you see in our own images here in This Week in the OpenLab, but you’re otherwise allowed to do anything you like (except, usually, make money off them). To use it, simply type key words into the box, and then click one of the databases below. The only real drawback being that you cannot search flickr and google images with one click, but need to search them separately. Other than that, this site has been soooo helpful to us, we can’t imagine life without it.
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FEATURED SITE: JOANNA ROONEY VOUS AIME
Joanna’s isn’t an OpenLab site, but we found it from one–she’s a student in Katy Garnier’s Interactive Interface Design course. She’s also a design intern for the Commons, which means she’s right at the heart of all things CUNY. But mostly, we just really liked her designs, and the super cool font of her name, and so we thought we’d mention it here, so you all could have a look.
