The Open Clip Art Library grew from a project between Jon Phillips (of Fabricatorz) and Bryce Harrington, in early 2004. From humble beginnings, it has evolved into a massive collection of over 24,000 scalable vector images, all created by 1200+ artists from around the world.

The Open Clip Art Library is an increasingly useful and powerful platform, through which, all work uploaded to the site is dedicated to the public through Creative Commons’ “Public Domain Dedicated”. Anyone can download and use the entire SVG library for any purpose, including both free and commercial works!

OCAL now boasts an easily navigable collection, made possible by new thumbnail previews. It has now become much easier to search and download clip art that suits any situation. The new site layout includes an updated theme, from Andy Fitzsimon, that emphasizes user interaction by placing more importance on the portal to upload created work, as well as displaying selections from the ever-growing collection.

Behind the scenes, members of Fabricatorz, including, among others, Bassel Safadi, Michi, Ronaldo Barbachano, and Brad Phillips, have helped push The Open Clip Art Library onto the Aiki Framework. This new PHP + MYSQL platform allows programmers to easily create and work with content management systems from the web.

Please help support the new Open Clip Art site launch by registering (if you haven’t already) and uploading artwork of your own!.

Read the entire Announcement 2.0 here and at the Fabricatorz post.

Clip Art of the Month for February 2010 will focus on Content regulation.

Whether one stands in favor of Apple’s products or against them, it’s impossible to deny Jobs and Company’s impact on our technological lives. Last week saw the unveiling of what Apple believes will become a “third category” of mobile computing: the iPad. The iPad aims at simplifying the user’s computing experience by merging elements of Apple’s existing laptop and phone releases.

In the new millennium, computing platforms have trended toward more open source solutions. While it may offer the end user a more simple and streamlined experience, the iPad also seems to assert Apple’s intention to focus on technology as a controlled gateway for proprietary consumption.

Images by Frector, adam_lowe, Minduka, flomar, and Tranberry (all above) demonstrate Apple’s influence on modern design and why it cannot be ignored. The reception of their latest product has been decidedly mixed. How will the introduction of the iPad affect the Open Clip Art Community? What ramifications might this have as open source computing progresses? Time will tell. In the meantime, feel free to share your thoughts and continue supporting Open Clip Art Library by using and contributing vector artwork.

Clip Art of the month is sponsored by Worldlabel.com, a multifunctional label manufacturer.

Going back through 2009 submissions will provide a point of reference as we search for these answers.

When used effectively, gradients can add new dimensions to vector-based imagery. The landscape designed by hrum (pictured above) combines multiple gradient layers into an effective piece of art.

Photorealistic techniques became very popular design choices for the Clip Art Community in 2009, and Chrisdesign provided an excellent example with his longsword.

Near the end of the year, placidoaps merged traditional vector graphic lines with tactical uses of gradients to give his rendering of a penguin both character and depth.

The Open Clip Art Library accepts vector art from anyone, anywhere, so help make visual landmarks in 2010 by contributing! Check out other 2009 works by Simanek and klaasvangend to get inspired.

Clip Art of the month is sponsored by Worldlabel.com, a multifunctional label manufacturer.

This tutorial will demonstrate how to create a business card template using Inkscape. The steps in this tutorial will work for Inkscape versions 0.46 and 0.47.

1. Creating The Template
   1. Importing the PDF template
   2. Converting to Guides
   3. Configuring Snapping
   4. Creating the Rectangle
   5. Creating the Clones
2. A Sample Business Card Design
   1. Creating the Background Gradient
   2. Creating the Background Pattern
   3. Adding Text

Creating The Template

Importing the PDF template

For the purposes of this tutorial, the stock for our business cards we will be the Worldlabel 3.5″ x 2″ Business Card.

Download the PDF template from the Worldlabel website: http://www.worldlabel.com/Templates/wl-ol244PDF.htm.

Launch Inkscape, and open up the PDF template using the File > Open... menu item. After opening up the file, the PDF Import Settings dialog box will appear. As illustrated below, use the default settings and press OK.

Your document should now have the template visible, similar to the image below. Now, go to File > Save As... and save your document in the native Inkscape format, SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics).

1.2. Converting to Guides

The next step is to convert the lines that make up the template into Inkscape guides. The template object that was imported from the PDF may be in a group. To convert the template to guides, we first need to ungroup the lines that make up the template. Go to Edit > Select All to select all the objects, then choose Object > Ungroup twice. The document should look similar to this:

Now, keep the lines selected, and choose Object > Objects To Guides from the menu. The original black lines have now been replaced with blue guide lines:

The next step is to double check the Inkscape’s snapping preferences.

1.3.1. Configuring Snapping for Inkscape 0.46

Open up the Document Properties dialog by going to File > Document Properties... in the menu. Select the Snap tab and configure the preferences as per the screenshot below:

With these preferences configured properly, when an object is moved or resized near the guides, the object should “snap” cleanly to the edge of the guide(s).

1.3.2. Configuring Snapping for Inkscape 0.47

Open up the Document Properties dialog by going to File > Document Properties... in the menu. Select the Snap tab and configure the preferences as per the screenshot below:

The main difference in Inkscape 0.47 is that a Snap Controls Bar was introduced. It is essentially a bar of toggle controls that control the snapping options. Having the buttons toggled as per the following screenshot will create the snapping behavior needed for this tutorial:

1.4. Creating the Rectangle

1. Select the Rectangle tool from the Inkscape Toolbox on the left hand side of the main Inkscape window.

   

2. Draw a small rectangle on the canvas within the guides of the top left Business Card area of the template.

   

3. Choose the Select tool from the tool box, and select the rectangle that you drew with it. The rectangle should have arrows around it like the following screenshot:

   

4. Resize the rectangle to fit the business card shape defined by the guides. While resizing, the rectangle should automatically snap out to the inner edges of the guides.

   

   

5. For the clones that we are going to create to function properly, our rectangle needs to be in a group. Select the rectangle using the Select tool.

   

   Now place the rectangle into a group with Object > Group from the menu. The statusbar at the bottom of the Inkscape window should now read:

   Group of 1 object in layer OL244. Click selection to toggle scale/rotation handles.

1. Select the rectangle (which is actually a group), and create a clone of it using Edit > Clone > Create Clone from the menu. This will create a linked clone of the object. Make sure the clone is selected by checking the statusbar for the following message:

   Clone Of: Group of 1 object in layer OL244. Use Shift + D to look up original.

2. Now move the newly created clone to another business card slot on the template. The clone should snap cleanly into place:

   

3. Go back to the original rectangle that was created, and repeat the cloning process until all 10 slots of the template have rectangles in them. Try to always keep the original rectangle in the top left slot of the template.

   

   

   When you have finished this step, the document should look like the following screenshot:

   

4. Now check that the clones have been created correctly by entering the group, and changing the color of the rectangle. First, select the original (it should still be in the top left slot) and double click on it to enter the group. After double clicking, the selection cues (the bounding box and arrows) will disappear. Click on the rectangle again and the statusbar message should have changed to: (the “#G1234″ value will be different):

   Rectangle in layer #G1234

   Now change the color of the rectangle using the palette at the bottom of the screen. If the clones have been created properly, the color of every object should change automatically.

   

   

2. A Sample Business Card Design

The second section of this tutorial will outline a sample process for using the newly created template to Design a Business Card.

2.1. Creating the Background Gradient

As was done in the final step of creating the template, select the original (it should still be in the top left slot) and double click on it to enter the group. After double clicking, the selection cues (the bounding box and arrows) will disappear. Click on the rectangle again and the statusbar message should have changed to: (the “#G1234″ value will be different):

Rectangle in layer #G1234

Now, select the gradient tool from the toolbar:

Now, click and drag a line on the rectangle, creating the gradient:

Click on the top node of the gradient. (This selects the node, making it blue like the screenshot below).

Open the Fill / Stroke dialog (Object > Fill / Stroke from the menu), and choose the fill color for the top node of your gradient. (in this example, the color that is used is #cc0000ff)

The gradient color will have changed:

Follow the same process, and change the color for the bottom node of the gradient (in this example, the bottom color that is used is #a40000ff). The canvas should look like:

2.2. Creating the Background Pattern

In the next step, a striped background pattern will be added to the business card.

Choose the select tool from the tool bar:

Next, duplicate the rectangle (Edit > Duplicate from the menus), and open the Fill / Stroke dialog again. In the Fill / Stroke dialog, choose the pattern fill type, and set the pattern to “Stripes 1:1 White”. In the same dialog, set the “Opacity (%)” slider at the bottom to 10%:

The result will look similar to:

2.3. Adding Text

The final step in the business card design is to add text.

Select the Text Tool from the side Toolbar:

Click once on the canvas to insert an unflowed text object, and type in some text.

After entering in the text, choose the select tool, and use the arrows that surround the text object to resize it.

The letters in an unflowed text object can be manually kerned. Choose the Text tool again and place the cursor between the letters that need to be moved. Next, hold down the ALT key, and press an Arrow key. Use this technique to manually fine tune the position of the letters:

Repeat this process to add multiple text objects to fill out the business card:

Finally, zoom out, and admire the finished business cards, ready to be printed.

Author is Ryan Lerch of http://ryanler.wordpress.com/

The above image I created by taking the photo of Obama, importing it into the free drawing program, Inkscape, and then using the tracing function to convert the unscalable pixels to scalable vector graphics (meaning they may be scaled to any size). Anyone can find content in the public domain, and convert graphics to vector graphics and upload them to the Open Clip Art Library. It is a quick and fast way to contribute to the project.

For this week’s clip art of the week, I am highlighting the global contribution of clip art by Worldlabel.com, a maker of labels. Russell from Worldlabel gave this clip art he had commissioned to the project, and every bit of it got converted to vector graphics in the manner I described above. Here are a few selections:

If you want to donate clip art you created, please do so at Open Clip Art Library. And, thanks again to Russell at Worldlabel.com for both pushing us to feature clip art and for the donation of clip art.