Beautiful Versions of the WordPress, Drupal and Joomla Logos
Earlier this year we wrote about some really interesting uses of the Drupal logo.
Most of those logos were funny. Some were bizarre. This week, I had talked with someone who’s making logos look beautiful.
Howard Perlman is based in Atlanta, near where OSTraining started. He makes gorgeous stained-glass versions of open source logos.
Here’s my chat with Howard, together with photos of his work.
Hi Howard. Can you introduce yourself …
Howard Perlman, longtime Atlanta resident, and long time hydrologist with the US Geological Survey (USGS). I think I tried doing some stained glass … decades ago … and was looking for a good hobby, and a good hobby to do in retirement in a few years.
Stained glass is just that, and I can make things for friends and relatives, and hopefully, sell some pieces.
How did you come up with the idea for these logos?
In my work at USGS, I needed to find a reviewer to look at some web pages I was developing about the water cycle. A TV meteorologist in Cleveland volunteered and reviewed my pages, so I make a small NBC peacock with their station letters and sent it to her (hoping she would show it and have others send in some orders (no)). Also, I made a USGS logo for my own office and sold a couple to other USGS employees.
I work some with open-source software systems and know how enthused people who work with Linux, Drupal, Joomla, Java, etc can be, so I thought about creating stained-glass panels they could buy from me.
It seems like a unique item that one doesn’t see much, so there should be a huge market for it. I am also writing individual companies to tell them I could create their corporate logo in stained glass, which to me, seems something they would like. But, it is hard to get an email to a corporate executive.
What’s the process you use to convert logos into stained glass?
Any stained glass panel can start with a drawing. Artists can draw by hand, but luckily for logos such as Joomla, Java, Drupal, etc, I have found vector versions of them online. So, I just download those and go into Adobe Illustrator, where I can get rid of colors, widen lines, and even move lines around.
I have to enlarge text maybe and adjust logo details so it works for glass. Then I can scale it to the exact size, print it out, and use it as a template to cut the glass.
Is this a one-off or are you going to make them available if people want them?
These are products I am trying to market to anyone who wants one, be it a Joomla or Drupal panel, or a custom-created panel for a single company’s logo.
I want to say I can mass produce something like a Joomla panel and market it that way, but these things are totally built from scratch and there really is no way to mass produce. It is simply a handmade object, made one at a time.
Howard Perlman
Alpharetta, GA
howardp.stainedglass@yahoo.com
WOW!!! These are beautiful works of art. I’m definitely ordering a Joomla one for my office. What a cool idea.
great idea, really nice pieces. I wish success with it. Much better for companies than sticker on door 😀