Noetic Art Q & A
Over the years, I've been asked a lot of questions. But let's leave the police out of this discussion. Listed below are some of the common inquiries I get. Make sure you read - if I get any of these questions in email after I've already answered them here, I use the responses for sarcasm practice.
- Is all this clipart really free?
- Am I allowed to use this clipart on my website?
- Will you create some custom artwork for me?
- In what formats is the clipart abvailable?
- What browsers do you support?
- What tools do you use to make Noetic Art?
- What was the first clipart image you drew?
- You say "We" a lot here. How many of you are there?
- Don't you have anything better to do?
- Are you a looney?
Is all this clipart really free?
Sure is. The real question is why is it free? The answer is simple. As soon as I start charging
money for this stuff, several unpleasant things begin to happen. First, the extra overhead of running a business
is just too much work. It saps the fun out of drawing the artwork and running this site. Second, far fewer people
will be using the clipart. I'd much rather have more people gain something from it than less. Third, as soon as
money is involved, so is the IRS, and they'll take so much of the low, low price I'd charge that I'd be left with nothing.
But most of all, I'm just a heck of a nice guy. I enjoy drawing and sharing it. It makes me happy to make it available
to you.
Am I allowed to use this clipart on my website?
Of course. You can use it on your personal web site, your business web site, your non-profit website, or your for-lots-of-profit website. You can use it on your company intranet, too. The only thing I ask is that you let me know the address of the website on which you have used the clipart, if it is a public one, and provide me with credit ( see the copyright page for more information). I like to see how others are using the clipart. It's amazing what you people think of!
Will you create some custom artwork for me?
Well, I used to do this. I don't really have time for it anymore, so the usual answer is NO. I'm always into about five or six projects, and have little time for custom artwork. I barely have time to crank out the crap on this site. However, if you have a large budget and want to offer me lots of money, we'll talk.
In what formats is the clipart available?
From this day forward, we offer JPG and PNG. Older clipart, most of it, is in GIF format with transparency. The following table lists the pros and cons of each:
| JPG | PNG | GIF | |
| File Size | Small | Medium | Small |
| Transparency | No | Yes | Yes |
| # Colors | Millions | Millions | 256 |
| IE 6 Support | Yes | No (1) | Yes |
| IE 7 Support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| FireFox Support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Opera Support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Safari Support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| (1) Supported, but not transparency. | |||
Our PNG images have transparency built in, but due to their larger file size, we make the images smaller. There are larger versions of the PNG files in the Entire Taco ZIP file download. Since JPG files are efficient and small, we made those images bigger in dimensions. You can size them smaller if you need to. JPG files, since they don't support transparency, are created with a white background.
What browsers do you support?
As mentioned in the previous question, the clipart images work fine in Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2.0, Opera 9.2, and version 3 of Safari for Windows. Most of the clipart will work fine in earlier versions of Internet Explorer, but only version 7 supports transparency in PNG files.
The website itself is a slight different story. Most of the content works in all of the aforementioned browsers. However, Safari for Windows does not work properly with the clipart page, and you will be unable to click on the clipart and see it. However, you can still download the ZIP file that contains all the clipart and use it. For some reason, Safari's Javascript interpreter is having problems with some fairly simple code I use to open a second window. The rest of the browsers, including IE7, Firefox, and Opera all work just fine.
If you don't know what this means, you're probably better off.
What tools do you use to make Noetic Art?
The clipart itself is drawn on heavy Strathmore sketch pads using pencil, pen and ink, and Prismacolor artist's markers for coloring. It is then scanned using a Canon flatbed scanner into the computer. Once there, I use Adobe Photoshop to adjust the brightness and contrast so it looks right on the computer. Then I make the JPG version and transparent PNG files.
The website is created using a variety of tools. Sometimes I use Macromedia Homesite to edit the web content, and other times I use Microsoft Visual Studio. The HTML is hand-coded, owing to my programmer background. I do not use WYSIWYG editors.
What was the first clipart image you drew?
The first drawn was the Alligator (see the About page for more on this). However, it was not really drawn for the site, but rather lead to its creation. The first one actually drawn for the site was the Dog. It was then stolen by the Dogpile search engine, changed very slightly, and used as their logo. Since then, after a couple emails, they have changed it more significantly. Certainly they are entitled to use it, but they failed to give me any credit for it, hence the hissy-fit I threw with them. All is well now. Still...
You say "We" a lot here. How many of you are there?
I could make some cheesy multiple personality jokes here, but I hope we're above that. Just a teeny bit. In reality, it's just one person, Tony Martin. I have no idea, really, why I use "We" so often. If any of you amateur (or preferably professional) psychiatrists out there have a clue, feel free to fill me in.
Don't you have anything better to do?
Apparently not.
Are you a looney?
Probably.