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Crazy idea: Make a Colemak T-shirt?

  • Started by DreymaR
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  • From: Viken, Norway
  • Registered: 13-Dec-2006
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ethana2/vilem: Are we still on the t-shirt topic, or veering into the slogan one? Just curious; there will be a natural overlap of course. I do feel that too much text kills the efficiency of a good t-shirt motif though, but people will feel differently I suppose. I'm just thinking about how much time I get to spend reading the average  shirt as its wearer walks by, and it isn't many seconds. (There's also the issue of not spending a conspicous amount of time ogling some persons' chest areas for instance!) I'd prefer a short but strong hook over a detailed message, myself. As kalixiri says, the details will follow if someone dares to ask.

kalixiri said:

I think you'd like a Colemak shirt as a sort of trophy, a novelty item or cool, quirky thing to wear. My reason for wanting to wear a Colemak shirt would be to convert others to this great layout: I'm trying to sell this idea to those around me. I need propaganda.

Kalixiri, I think you got me all wrong, and furthermore I feel you have a very quirky sales pitch there. I see that keyboard samurai gets and likes your suggestion, and maybe many others do too? I didn't, but that shouldn't detain you I hope.  :)

Don't think that I'm after a quirky novelty/trophy only, that's insulting of my intellect. My dream shirt would be fun to wear and stimulate the eyes for sure, but of course I want it to be "selling" Colemak as well! These benefits can be combined you know.

The thing is, I think you overestimate the curiosity factor generated by pointing a question mark (or a WTF for that matter) at a QWERTY semicolon, as well as the clarity of that message.

For one, it's a negative message ("something is strange/bad") instead of a positive message ("Colemak is cool/good") and while that may feel right to you it's often a less effective marketing ploy. I know it's used in many commercials but that's still what I've been told by ad people. I do know that I personally tend to be put off those negative/annoying/tiresome commercials and prefer the nice/fun/positive ones (if they're done right that is; a plain overenthusiastic/"hallelujah" one won't work with me for instance).

I believe that the people who haven't noticed anything strange about their keyboard their entire life won't be much jarred by your semicolon either. To them, your ASDFJKL; line probably won't say "layout" at all, but simply "typing". And then your message will be something like "typing?" which won't raise many eyebrows I'm afraid. Asking of the passersby that they draw conclusions about the placements of keys from your graphic is asking a lot in my (unprofessional) opinion.

I don't think your line of thinking is any less prone to the weird looks and shuffling away than an "unprepared" encounter over a keyboard is. If anything, I'd feel a bit uncomfortable that I've been outgeeked by someone who thinks the placement of a blasted semicolon is a big issue. Maybe I wouldn't get around to considering that you have similar feelings for more important keys at all, before I made my escape.

As mentioned before, the semicolon on a weak and hard working pinky is among the least problems of the QWERTY home row (the A and S aren't in trouble so the semicolon would be more trouble than them at least - but not that much). Again, you may be attempting to convey a negative message: That the position could be put to better use. But nothing in your design shows me that you're talking about positions and not the letters themselves (apart from the ASDFetc itself; but as mentioned most people will probably think "typing" rather than "position" when seeing that).

Anecdote: Not long ago I saw some espresso cups that had a type-esque design on them. But there was something unsettling about it: Most of it was QWERTY wrapped around the cups, but some keys stood out and those weren't QWERTY. Another layout maybe? No, they were badly out of place and there were even doublets. Then I noticed that those odd keys spelled a word (I've forgotten what) together. To this design, QWERTY wasn't a layout at all! It was simply a graphical element that said "typing" and could be used as a backdrop, nothing more. Since I've been so focused on keyboard layouts for quite a while now, it took me a while to figure that one out. I think that most commoners would've gotten it immediately because they generally don't think about layouts.

Finally, I think that your design is plain. It doesn't tickle my eye. Remember how many weird and wonderful t-shirt designs are out there these days, and you'll have to make an effort if you want to be noticed at all by anyone else than your mother (mine always seems to notice everything, hehe). Maybe it wouldn't take more than using a Courier font or something - it doesn't have to take a lot.

I think that a good design might tell people "typing" through showing key caps and/or staggered rows, while also showing the Colemak design to get them thinking about layouts. That might get the attention of some, if it's done well and stylish. I'd like something that catches the eye and at the same time shows people that it's about a keyboard layout that's different. My ideal would be to show at least part of the Colemak in that design, too. Vilem's reflection graphic modified to show Colemak/QWERTY reflections would be a good example of showing just a little Colemak to get things started.

About the 130-year thing: This morning I thought of a graphic showing a vintage typewriter on the left hand, morphed into a modern keyboard with Colemak on the right hand. It could be done in such a way that only the QWAZXCVB keys that are common of both layouts were left on the old machine. I'll see if I can pull it off and whether it can look good. Or maybe NeoMenlo or someone else with the skill thinks it's an interesting idea? Feel free to try. It may be risky, messagewise, to tell people that the Colemak still has an "old" part at the left since they'd be given to wonder whether that may be a bad thing, but I feel it could be worth a try.

*** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
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I guess I was veering a little into slogans.

How about something like:

Hkuu;, h;w ask o;i g;ljt f;gao?  Eljk, fhajnd.  : If this was english, qwerty would work.

The fact that the first part is complete nonsense could be somewhat eye catching, eh?

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  • From: Viken, Norway
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Oo, crazy!  :)  Maybe too involved and bastant, I don't know? Certainly an eye-catcher though.

On inspiration: If I/we could get a typewriter-graphic idea to work, it'd be tempting to have this text below: TYPE RIGHTER! COLEMAK.

The first part in Courier, the Colemak in something nice and modern but not too extravagant - I'm thinking Univers, Futura, Helvetica, VAG Rounded (!) or MS Sans Serif (used by Logitech). I think that'd be fun. Still need to make a pic that works of course.

*** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
*** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***

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So... can someone give me a decision?

What is the consensus?

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Sorry- it's your t-shirt, right?  Which suggestion do you like?  All I do is generate them and refine them.

Lad's dad sash fads lash...
So ends the usefulness of qwerty's home row....  Sad.

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Or make a little passage that doesn't use any a's, s's, d's, h's, but uses a lot of e's, r's, t's, n's, i's, and o's.

Then tell qwerty users to type it ten times fast... and go see a doctor.  With qwerty's horribleness, engineering such a short passage should be a piece of cake.  They can even try to retaliate, but if they do, they, well, got nothing.  :)

I still like the idea of making a "Hi, I'm a keyboard.  And I'm colemak.  Wait, you're not the only keyboard layout.  You can't just call yourself "keyboard"..."  You get the idea.  In fact, If anyone here knows how to use blender, I seriously would like to help you pull this off.  I want to see such an ad come to be.  It'd be awesome.  We could use the makehuman script.

Anyway: front of shirt: (engineered text.)  back of shirt: "If you typed this in qwerty, you may want to consult your chiropractor..."

"Surgeon General's Warning: Prolonged exposure to the qwerty keyboard layout may cause susceptibility to some types of repetitive strain injuries, and jittery mutations in unborn children...."

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  • From: Köln, Germany
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Guys, wouldn't we want a t-shirt that looks a bit cool and catchy rather than one with loads of text on it? I think a logo would suffice, as I don't suspect a long text to get more people's attention. I wouldn't dare to let myself be seen on the streets wearing a t-shirt with really nerdy phrases all over. For example, a t-shirt with the blue glossy colemak on it would look really simple, then we could add a small .com next to it (also glossy) and then people might get curious and go to the website. I think colemak.com should remain the place where people get convinced to switch and not the t-shirts. Those are merely there to get people to go to colemak.com.

ethana2, I really like the idea of making an apple-style, "Hi, I'm a colemak and I'm a QWERTY." I think we shouldn't make the ads as agressive as the apple ones, though. What I was thinking of: a cmk, a dvorak and a qwerty meet and they want to see who's the fastest, so they do a race. Dvorak and cmk tie, being faster than qwerty who hobbles into the finish line later, totally out of breath. (He could be an old man) So he goes something like "Wow, you guys are fast and you're not even out of breath!" So he decides to upgrade, but doesn't know whether he should switch to Dvorak or to cmk. Then Dvorak reveals that she is a woman, but colemak, being much more like QWERTY, is a man. So, to make things less complicated, qwerty decides to upgrade to colemak *for free* and you see him working out every day, until he is as fast as dvorak and the other cmk.

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I agree Vilem: A lot of text kills. Not to mention the difficulty of reading it all on a potentially wrinkled shirt while the wearer moves around.

Hmmm... "I'm a Colemak and I'm a QWERTY" will probably appeal to Apple insiders only. Took me a little to remember roughly the ad you're referring to. Too much of an insider thing if you ask me.

NeoMenlo: There is no consensus, and likely will not be one, just a bunch of good and bad fun ideas. Either pick one of the many interesting suggestions/themes mentioned here that tickles your fancy and go to work on that, pick your own idea or choose not to. If you do want to make something, I think many here including myself are eager to see it, but it'll have to be your call not "ours" as there simply is no "us" in terms of a consensus body giving you a mission. I would of course have you work on my idea(s) such as the latest Remington-to-Colemak morph or the speedy Colemak one (or the sphere for that matter - that'd be nice too; or just a bunch of happy keys bulging/bouncing in a dynamic yet recognizable pattern; or the wavering flag since I like all those ideas!) but I'm not calling your shots at all. I'd also like to see the Vilem/Samurai concept with reflections showing the right text and the letters in the "wrong" QWERTY as that's an awesome idea.

*** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
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Yeah, we could come up with lots of interesting commercial ideas...
But let's practice something I'm horrible at and stay on topic for the remainder of my post. ;)

You want a logo?  I'm an inkscape user.  Describe what you want and how to get it to you, and I'll try not to keep you waiting.
If I can't do something now, I'll figure it out.

That's called being a go-getter.  I'm not generally very good at that, either.  Seriously, though.  Try me.

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Meh.  I just went ahead and made it.

I sent NeoMenlo an email, and when he replies, I'll send him the logo.

It's a sharp light blue with a little bit of "white shiny" on top of the text, and a slightly blurred reflection on the Apple Ever Present White Glass Infinite Floor™.

I would post it here, but I don't know any html but bold, italics, and underlined text, and I don't really upload stuff often, so I don't have any such service set up or anything...

I think the font was Verdana.  Something clean and simple, anyway.  I don't know my fonts ;)

If you must have a .png instead for some reason, I can get that to you as well.

Last edited by ethana2 (23-Jun-2007 11:45:42)
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I thought I sent it to neomenlo... guess I sent it to Vilem.  Whatever.

my email address is ethana2@gmail.com - if anyone here wants to see what I came up with, I can send you .png samples or .svg's.  Just send me a request.

If you guys want, I could try to come up with several awesome color variations.  Currently it's blue, but purple looks sweet too...  ....aaannnddd  just about any other color looks sweet as well.

You know what?  There's an infinite range of color variations.  If you want to play with it, get inkscape (oss, don't worry.) and I'll send you the .svg so you can mess with it 'till you like it.  It's really easy to learn- and tutorials are part of the help menu.

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  • From: Köln, Germany
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I've made loads of different colour versions of my glossy colemak! I might get round to uploading them all some time soon!

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Your version looked clean and crisp, and the reflection looked crisp as well... but I don't know if it counts as "glossy" without the shine at the top of the letters...

Unless you have other ones I haven't seen yet.

Does everyone here have inkscape?

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Vilem has adobe illustrator...  if that can't open open standards compliant web-ready scalable vector graphics...  Then...
Dang graphic design instructors.  Always expecting you to use proprietary stuff.  I wonder if they get kickbacks from adobe...

(If you see anything that illustrator can do that inkscape can't, tell me so I can relay it to the inkscape development team to be fixed.  And I don't mean closed format support, although it would be nice to be able to read .ai files, I mean tools of any kind.  As far as I know, inkscape is superior.)

You know, this is for a t-shirt, right?  So- wouldn't it be cheaper to make 2 or 3 solid color logos?

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It's not my t-shirt, I just volunteered to do 3D or Photoshop work, but it looks like you've got that handled.

Anyway, I'm going on vacation for a week, so I won't be able to help right now.

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We need a section of this site for slogans, art, and merchandise ;)
That'd be fun.  I'd add stuff to it.  You know, make some videos to spread the word...

The entire "Hi, I'm colemak." "And I'm a qwerty." "A qwerty?" "Well, I figure, since I'm the only keyboard layout that anyone really uses, we can just change 'keyboard' to.." "Hold it right there!" thing would be fun to do.  I think It'd be best to do it in blender, if any one here knows how to use it...

I think it'd help me stay on topic easier on certain threads to have one spot to dump all my ideas, and see everyone else's as well.

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Well, since the main pages use media wiki, you'd think that would happen. Instead it seems to be more of a CMS than place for colaboration

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I changed my colemak 'logo' by request of Ethana2:
colemakbluesyx6.png
I will, like neo, be gone for a week, so stay busy posting, guys, so I have loads to read when I come back!

Last edited by vilem (24-Jun-2007 20:33:30)
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Hmmm... the antialiasing(?) of the reflections makes them look unphysical which may be bad since I perceive it as a "photorealistic" figure. Maybe the idea is to have the reflections look "vibrating" of sorts? Unless the letters themselves do that too, I'm afraid it'll still look unphysical; and vibration != vibrancy.  ;)

*** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
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How about a giant C eating a small Q. With the wording above "Qwerty bites!". And below ... "33.3% to 73.9%. Arise Colmak!"

The percentages refer to the distribution of frequency of letters in the Engligh language that can be typed on the home row of each Qwerty and Colemak.

The idea is to engage interested readers in a discussion ...

Jay Walker
The Confused Capitalist

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You could try to do something that wouldn't explain much, but make a statement that qwerty users would declare "false", that are true with colemak.
Like a passage of something that is typed on the colemak home row, and simply say "This is my home row practice lesson."
Qwerty users would be all "But those aren't on home row!"
"They are in Colemak.  Perhaps you should try it out."
So, basically you use information that appears to be inaccurate to get them emotionally involved, and then turn them back on their false assumptions.

ethana2
The Confident Democratic Socialist

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...or you can just keep bashing caps lock.  It's an easy target.  It's simple, too.  Just say something like:

"Honk if you actually use caps lock.  That's what I thought.  colemak.com
Because sometimes "tradition" isn't a good enough excuse."

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  • From: Horsham, West Sussex, UK
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Nobody's said anything about this for a while, but this evening on the way home from work, I stopped off completely on a whim and bought a couple of plain T-shirts and some iron-on transfer inkjet paper to try out just this for a weekend project. Now trying to come up with a design.

Here's idea 1. On the front: "I can type faster than you" in bold, typewriter-esque Courier New. On the back, "Colemak. Fast. Comfortable. Easy." and the website address https://colemak.com/

Idea 2. "QWERTY. Designed to slow you down. Colemak. Designed to speed you up."

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Go you. Feel free to use any of my graphics if you want. But remember: Pics, or it didn't happen!

*** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
*** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***

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OK here are the pictures of the first one:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jammycakes/4333772781/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jammycakes/4334516278/

Number two hot off the press this evening -- I'll post some pictures later in the week.

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