DrunkenBlog

And The Cows give a bow

Say hello to the new Cow of DrunkenBlog.

The Cow has evolved -- and fully come into its own -- which means the former Cow must step aside and quietly slink off into retirement. It's not without its sorrow, but before the next big post goes live, this post will be the final resting place of the former Cow.

The situation with The Cow has been on my mind for awhile, mostly because I had no clue as to where he came from. I'd found him somewhere ages ago, become enchanted, and when I started the site I eventually started slapping him everywhere because he amuses me.

Unfortunately, I really had no clue as to where he originated, and that's probably not very kosher, and although no one complained I figured it needed to be taken care of. Someone passed on -- in between showing me 1k pictures of his dog -- that it came from distributed.net's logo, so I needed to talk to them.

After some hunting to find the right people to talk to, and some amusing conversations (I have some strange emails that only say MOOOO!), they basically said they had no problem with me using The Cow, which was very cool, but my eye was already starting to wander.

In order to use it for some things I've been asked about I'd still have to recreate it in a better format, and I figured why not ask someone whose skills I admired to take the essense of The Cow and bring him forth into the new era of the site. If it didn't work out, I could still always just recreate the older.

Unfortunately, taking the essence and re-imagining The Cow into something new and unique (while putting up with me) was going to be a tall order, so after some false starts it got put on the back burner.

Chances are you've seen David's work through his doings at the Iconfactory, because some aspect of some app that you're using probably has an icon that he's touched. I've been a huge fan of his artwork for awhile, and I was thrilled when he decided to take on the challenge of The Cow (history note: profuse begging was involved).

It took some patience (mostly on his side due to my direction; it turns out "More Sexy!" and "I want to want to drink him." isn't that helpful) but I have to stop myself from cracking up whenever I look at him, and I'm just as thoroughly charmed (if not more so) by the reincarnation of The Cow as I am by his predecessor.

Working with him on The Cow -- and seeing its progress -- has really been one of the bright spots over the last few weeks while I've been grinding on this big project for the site (note to brain -- when you are flowcharting a post, something is wrong), and if you've never seen his work you should really check it out for the free icons and desktops alone.

His work just really charms me in general, and if you glanced at my computer, there's a 7/10 chance one of his desktops will be on it. If there's one complaint I have about his work it's that not enough of my favorites are available to pick up as a print... but hopefully that's temporary. The site really caught a break on this one.

And yes, I realize this may be overboard as a send-off to mascot. However, the site has 'evolved' quite a bit over the last year from whence it came -- let alone the last six months -- but the Cow has been a constant and something about its expression really set the tone of things.

If nothing else, whenever I saw it and laughed, it reminded me not to take things (and myself) too seriously. My hope is the new Cow will fill the same role, while also charming you as it has me. Long live The Cow, and a well-deserved retirement to its predecessor.

 Posted by drunkenbatman
    April 16, 2005, at 06:58 PM