next up previous
Next: Requirements Up: Script-Fu: Graphic Art for Previous: Script-Fu: Graphic Art for

Introduction

Company logos, product names, and eye-catching slogans are as ubiquitous as they are necessary for successful marketing. Traditionally, this sort of graphic design work lay squarely in the realm of the professional artist. A company which required art for magazine ads, CD or record labels, book covers, posters, or product brochures would contract the services of a graphic design firm. Individuals not associated with large companies had little use for such artwork, because both the cost of advertising and the cost of graphic design were prohibitive.

Things have changed. The cost of advertising has gone through the floor, while the cost of graphic design remains high. Individuals now have the ability to advertise products, ideas, and opinions, but lack the means to present them in a compelling fashion. Script-Fu, a piece of computer software developed to address this situation, makes high-quality graphic design an option available to everyone.

The advent of the World Wide Web (WWW) is rapidly changing the face of the world's information infrastructure. The WWW is a conglomeration of distinct ``web sites'' linked together by what are known as ``hyperlinks''. It is built on the ``internet'', a global communications network for computer-based communications. If the WWW were compared to a railway system, web sites would correspond to train stations, and hyperlinks to tracks. Web sites contain publicly available information including text, images, animations, and sound. Users travel from web site to web site to find information of interest, using a program known as a ``browser'' (Netscape and Microsoft Internet Expolorer are examples of widely available browsers). The browser, then, is like a train that carries the user from one depot of information to the next, following hyperlinks between web sites.

What makes the WWW so revolutionary is the cost at which it allows individuals to disseminate information. Because of the distributed architecture of the internetgif and the low cost of personal computers, anyone can establish a presence on the World Wide Web for under $10,000. On the WWW, individuals have as much right and recourse to advertising as large corporations. In this context, ``advertise'' has a wide range of meanings-from actual product marketing to information exchange and the publication of ideas and opinions.

As recently as 1985, the internet consisted of roughly 50 sites. Today, the count is higher than 100,000, and is rapidly increasing. In fact, the naming conventions which assign each site on the internet a unique, identifying name, have to be changed to account for the unexpected magnitude of expansion [5].

This expansion of the internet is blamed by most on the staggering growth of the world wide web, as universities, companies, organizations, and individuals race to take advantage of this nascent means of mass-communication. In the confusion of this mad scramble, attention spans for web-surfers (users who access the information on the WWW) have reached all time lows. Like more traditional forms of mass-media-radio and TV, for example-the format and appeal of packaging is becoming as important or more important than the actual content. Imagine a TV with literally millions of channels available and an efficient interface for searching them for items of interest. The importance of high quality, eye-catching presentations assumes an unprecedented magnitude in this context. It would be a rare web-surfer indeed, who would bother with a web page that contained no concessions to visual or auditory stimulation.

captypefigure

 

  table252


Table 1: There is an emerging need for graphic art solutions that support the needs of individuals, who can't afford professional graphic designers.

While the cost of advertising has plummeted with the World Wide Web, the cost of graphic design has not decreased. If anything, the extreme demand generated by the WWW has pushed the price of graphic design through the roof in the short-term; prices will remain high until the graphic design industry can grow large enough to satisfy current and future demand.

The World Wide Web is here to stay. Its growth continues at an almost impossible rate and the exploration of its benefits is just beginning. The WWW will certainly be here for the next five years, and what the future holds is undoubtedly even more surprising than the recent advances in information exchange. Through it all, the requirement that information be presented compellingly is unlikely to change, as human nature seems constant in that regard. Script-Fu targets the problem of information packaging and is therefore well-suited to the needs of both the present and the immediate future.


next up previous
Next: Requirements Up: Script-Fu: Graphic Art for Previous: Script-Fu: Graphic Art for

Spencer Kimball
Wed May 28 22:14:48 PDT 1997