Avatar Challenge

Recently, when I was doing the three-day overlap to change from Friday-Thursday to Monday-Sunday guest tweeter schedule, I asked a question about Twitter avatars for rotation curation accounts.

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(tl:dr Make/find/buy* us an overlay that we can use as brand identification on Twitter while still allowing our guest tweeters freedom to identify themselves during their week.)

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My decision is that the best way to handle the competing challenges of brand recognition and guest freedom is to go with a standard overlay that all guest tweeters would put over their chosen avatar pic.

But what overlay? Good question. A very good question. A difficult question. What's the next question? Ask me one on sport!

I think that, first and foremost, we need an overlay that says "Photographer!" loud and clear. It also needs to take up very little room on a square frame, and it needs to have lots of transparent space that allows the guest tweeter's chosen avatar pic to show through.

Actually, very first and very foremost, it has to be an image which is copyright free or to which we could be granted a licence for free. We don't want to be "that guy".

So I turn to you, gentle reader, and ask you to solve the problems. There are three things you could possibly do to help.

• Design a graphic overlay and grant us a license to use it as a Twitter avatar, and possibly here on this blog as well,
• Find a suitable Creative Commons licensed image and let us know about it, or
• Find a suitable copyright image and buy* us a license to use it as a Twitter avatar.

A suggestion:

Given the size (128px) and shape (square) limitations, I like the idea of a combination of a colour wheel and an aperture ring.  Something like this one, but at f/2 rather than f/8. (If you're a non-photographer designer coming here to win fame and fortune, that means with a bigger open inner circle.)

Another problem would be where to store this image and how to make it available to guest tweeters. Feedback I've received from other rotation curation accounts that use an overlay indicates that the admin solicits an avatar pic from the upcoming guest tweeter, applies the overlay and then sets the avatar during the handover housekeeping period. I would suggest that most, if not all, of @WeRPhotography's guest tweeters would have the ability to do this themselves.

NOTE: If you are considering being a guest tweeter, but you can't do this due to a lack of software, experience or for other reasons, please, please don't let that put you off. It's your photographic vision that we want you to share, not necessarily your technical skills.

So! Please, please, please, get to it. Make/find/buy* us an overlay that we can use as brand identification on Twitter while still allowing our guest tweeters freedom to identify themselves during their week.

If you have something, please leave a link in the comments or tweet/DM them to @WeRPhotography or @JustJimWillDo.

*Please don't just pay out money for something without checking with me first!