Meet Jack

Jack the Lumberjack

Meet Jack the Lumberjack. He's the new mascot for Scalable and Modular Architecture for CSS.

When working on the e-book, I wanted to have something that could provide an identity for the book and for the project. The idea of it being a lumberjack quickly came to mind. I liked the idea of a lumberjack for a number of reasons.

For those that aren't aware, I live in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Ottawa used to be home to some of the largest lumber barons in the world. That's right: Ottawa had a few lumberjacks in its day. So, the connection of the mascot to the city was nice to have.

When trying to describe what this lumberjack would look like, I pictured him in a plaid jacket sporting a lovely beard. How hipster designer, I thought. I was half tempted to give him some glasses, too.

With a quick sketch that I drew for inspiration, I enlisted the help of Kyle Jones. I told him what I was looking for someone that had that Yukon Cornelius vibe. Somebody who could take on the abominable snowman with ease. (Just as Jack can take on CSS with ease!)

As we went through the final touch-ups, we had the plaid jacket but I debated about the colour of the hat. Red, maybe? Nah, too much like Santa. Instead, I went with blue. What better way to celebrate web standards than with a blue toque? (Sorry, beanie.)

Kyle came through and delivered a top notch illustration.

And that's the story of Jack the Lumberjack.

If you haven't already, head over to SMACSS and check out the new site. The e-book is now for sale with plenty more to come. I recommend signing up for the mailing list!

P.S. I might have to make some t-shirts.

Published November 28, 2011
Categorized as Design
Short URL: https://snook.ca/s/1007

Conversation

13 Comments · RSS feed
Anton Peck said on November 28, 2011

He's awesome!

Bramus! said on November 28, 2011

Give 'm white hair and blue clothing and you've got ... ;-)

Bramus! said on November 28, 2011

(Urgh, *red* clothing I mean)

Andrew Ckor said on November 29, 2011

Great story!
I think as your first "Full Membership" subscriber, I have the privilege for a free "Mister Jack" t-shirt :P

Vitaliy said on November 29, 2011

It seems to me that SMACSS is similar to BEM but BEM is more complex and better
http://bem.github.com/bem-method/html/all.en.html

Yannick L said on November 29, 2011

Looks pretty good. Good job Jonathan and Kyle.

Marlon said on November 29, 2011

Nice mascot!

Jonathan Snook said on November 29, 2011

@Vitaliy: You left a comment in the comments on SMACSS with the same remark but you haven't provided any reasons why you prefer it and in what ways it is better.

Kevin Esther said on November 29, 2011

Nice. Like the head shot for the logo. Maybe you should have him peering over the bottom of the footer.

Nice website design and mascot.

Vitaliy said on November 30, 2011

first and main difference between SMACSS and BEM: Id-based CSS selectors are not flexible, and not even faster!

Jonathan Snook said on November 30, 2011

@Vitaliy: Thanks for following up. I advocate for class-based selectors in almost all cases. The exception being IDs only on major layout containers.

Kathreen said on December 14, 2011

Please teach the rest of these internet hooligans how to write and resaerch!

Vassilis Mastorostergios said on December 26, 2011

I find this very fitting for another reason: Front end developers are often perceived as jacks of all trades because they usually do design, front end and back end dev work, or at least arent afraid of mixing up those skills. Dont know if it was any part of your concept but nevertheless, great job.

Sorry, comments are closed for this post. If you have any further questions or comments, feel free to send them to me directly.