When I first setup a blog back in 2005, I used WordPress. It was very nice software, and I enjoyed using it. Then a couple years ago I moved from one hosting provider to another, then another, and finally another. During that time, I’ve tried several different software packages to try to replace WordPress. (Edit: Not because I didn’t like WordPress, but to see if I liked anything better that worked better with a different system.) Some I liked more than others, and each had certain strengths and other weaknesses. Now that I’ve moved to this server for hosting, I’ve decided that WordPress was the right choice for me all along.
So … I’ve come full circle and migrated all my posts back to WordPress for this new site, and all my old sites now redirect here. As a result, Scottopolis has content (though admittedly not much, as I’ve been a lazy blogger up to this point) going back about four years even though it is a new site.
Regardless, none of this really matters at the moment given that I have a total readership of somewhere between one and two. Hopefully you fractional readers will enjoy the new site.
Of particular note, I’d like to point out the ‘art’ I created for Scottopolis. First, there is the seal:
The seal of Scottopolis, including year founded and city logo.
The basic logo was created using the self-proclaimed Official Seal Maker, which gives you a lot of flexibility to create a quasi-official looking seal for whatever purpose you want. The basic logo came out looking like this:
The basic seal for Scottopolis prior to modification in GIMP.
After I downloaded that, I decided I’d like to punch it up a bit, so I loaded it into GIMP (the Gnu Image Manipulation Program), converted it to gray scale, used that as a bump map, and got the 3D looking effect in the final version. Finally I did some work on the alpha channel (transparency) so that it would be usable on just about any background. I got rid of the credit on the logo because it looked horrible bump mapped. Plus, I figured at that point that I’d done a lot of work on top of what the Official Seal Maker did, so it was as much or more mine at that point. Even so, take a look at their web site, it is fun to play around with if nothing else.
I’ve been asked why I used a pumpkin in the logo. It was either that or a shamrock. The shamrock I thought would be fun since I’m an eighth Irish. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get it to look right, particularly bump mapped, because it was just an outline without any detail work whatsoever. My wife had the pumpkin idea, and once I found it in the clip art collection, I decided it would be perfect.
Next I decided I needed a favicon.ico file for the address bar & bookmark lists. Since I’d already used the pumpkin in the seal, I decided to stick with that theme. Using GIMP again, I created a couple of brown ovals for the outline and creases of the pumpkin, and filled it with orange, then added a green stem to the top. The hard part was coming up with something that looked good while being constrained to 16 pixels square. It’s obviously not a real pumpkin, but I think it is recognizable and works.