Zig Forums seriously needs to step up its game in creating informative content that can be used for reusable refutations of Zig Forums and other anticommunist propaganda. However, most people are not graphic designers and don't know how to make infographics that are attractive, readable, and well-organized (myself included). In order to make good graphic designs accessible to the wider Zig Forums population, I'm calling on all artists on Zig Forums to help contribute to a free and open source infographic tool kit and design guide. We should make it in the .xcf file format compatible with GIM, or Inkscape so that it is usable by the widest range of people for free, and doesn't phone home to Adobe. gimp.org/ inkscape.org/en/
Here is a starter file: >>>/file/376
As well, I intend to use a custom CSS for this board. Our goals should be for it to be unobtrusive and simple, and for it to convey the same information that the default CSS does. People are welcome to suggest CSS rules for Zig Forums to make it look better.
I made a thread on /freedu/ years ago where I wanted to collect materials for using Free Software graphics tools: >>>/freedu/870 It has some nice introductory materials but needs contributions.
Non-Designers Design Book is a pretty good introduction to the basic principles of design.
Jaxson Wright
From the thread: Digital Foundations :: flossmanuals.net/digital-foundations/ Practical introduction to digital art using free software (Inkscape, GIMP, Scribus, etc.).
GIMP Tutorials :: gimp.org/tutorials/ Tutorials on the official site. It couldn't really find any free books or something comprehensive for GIMP, it seems like people prefer making tutorials that teach tricks.
Grokking the GIMP :: gimp-savvy.com/BOOK/ Free book about GIMP, but a bit dated.
Inkscape Manual :: flossmanuals.net/inkscape/ Introduction to Inkscape, a free (as in freedom) vector graphics editor.
Anime Vectoring Tutorial :: sites.google.com/site/jjaaba/main Quick introduction to vector tracing images using Inkscape. Not limited to anime!
Scribus HOWTOs :: wiki.scribus.net/canvas/Category:HOWTO Scribus is a free and open source desktop publishing program. You can make beautiful PDFs using it.
One suggestion for the CSS: make it so that I can really hide threads, having the stubs for 5 hidden stickies is annoying tbh. Refreshing the front page takes longer because it has to rehide those threads as well. Maybe I'm just retarded and this functionality already exists though.
Luis Lee
Custom CSS is an awful idea, it will only make the board run slower.
We need a todo list of things to tackle with the infographics, like: liberal and fascist racialism, the myth of class mobility and that working hard makes you wealthy. Examples of anticommunist atrocities and accomplishments of socialist countries.
Just gonna say that everyone should source all their claims when making an infographic, we have to avoid Zig Forums tier bullshit jpgs that are either entirely made up or rely on blog posts and youtube videos.
This is a good idea, and once we have a good set of templates, we should start making stuff like this. In a new thread, even.
Yes, we should have a standard template set for citations, pull quotes, etc. as well.
Jaxon Gray
We should also have a design guide on how to organize text on 8ch itself. Like when to use ==red text==, when to use bold text, italics, etc.
Juan Young
nibba
Leo Garcia
forgot about the retarded regex rule for it
Anthony Perry
This is a great idea, thank you BO.
With that being said, I think we could make our work a lot easier on the infographic front by first identifying: 1) The most common Zig Forumsyp and anti-left arguments that people who post on Zig Forums encounter and have to refute. By identifying which arguments are the most popular among the opposition, we can ensure that what is produced is maximally effective in quickly refuting their talking points. 2) Existing infographics in the booru and elsewhere. There is no point in pouring time into making these graphics if someone already made them years ago and added them to leftybooru. For example, this infographic here lists a lot of refutations of common I.Q./race "science" arguments and has the sources to back them up. 3) Reputable information sources. It's going to look bad if our infographics link back to articles by Auntie Jane's Daiperfur Blog. 4) Effective templates. Others in this thread have already got the ball rolling on this, but I'm just emphasizing the need to have legible text and attractive thumbnails. I written a few tricks on how to do this in the trash thread and can repost them later if need be.
Yes, we should also reuse infographics and screencaps that have already been made. Important ones should be remade with the design guidelines if possible. People can help by going through the booru and tagging all infographics that they see. lefty.booru.org/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=infographic
The production of art, or "infographics that are attractive, readable, and well-organized" can't be easily contracted to this-or-that. If you want to know how to do any of that, you'll need to learn colour theory, formatting, layout, typesetting, composition and so on. There is no easy one-two-three to learn any of these things: it takes time. Likewise, "templates" aren't enough. Good design is adaptive to its goals and letter. There is no 'one size fits all'. Educating users and encouraging to make content at all would be more worthwhile.
A while back I began collecting books and commenting them for the benefit of those interest in art. I had to abandon compiling for various reasons, but what I collected might be still be of use in its current state. Although unfinished, this archive contains most books I intended to recommend. You can find it here: volafile.org/get/vFdGVk4dua7f/WIP.rar Password is "Zizek". The link will expire in two days. You are free to do with it as you like.
Of course, the best way to get better content is to encourage content production. Put more effort into promoting Zig Forums originals, particularly contributors, and you will get better content and more artists with time. Also, avoiding needless drama and maintaining a positive relationship with the userbase would keep motivation up.
Alexander Phillips
No eye-scorching bright palettes, please.
Luis Flores
Learn Inkscape isntead of gimp, it is better for everything besides photo editing.
Actually, extreme dark/light contrasts are harmful. Also I was referring to the overly washed colour palette, not the contrast.
Ian Gonzalez
I'd recommend having a discussion on "mostly finished" infographics, with alpha/beta-version being posted with "work-in-progress" stamp all over (that way unchecked version will not be reposted by anons) - to work out all the kinks.
We can make the best looking infographs in the world, but they won't do much outside of the extremely narrow world of chans and reddit. Working on something like DebunkngStormfags, that old compilation of "race realism" refutations, would be a better use of time if we want thorough and more convincing refutations to present to normies outside of chans, in addition to not requiring artfags sympathetic and talented enough to produce stuff that doesn't look like dogshit. You could also stick links to that in the FAQ less obtrusively than you can sticky a thread of Zig Forums infographs. /anarcho/ and old /marx/ had terrible color schemes, don't do a black or red background that makes posts difficult to read just because it fits with leftist color schemes. Take a page from Zig Forums and remove the text about attention-hungry games and link to retarded boards, we get more normies and the last thing we'd want is to expose them to other Zig Forums boards filled with reactionaries and bizarre fetishes.
Chase Hughes
here is an example of inkscape. inkscape is free software and much better for working with text than GIMP is.
This is good. Inkscape is perfect for these things.
Josiah Edwards
Its easy af man. I'll even attach the file if you reply and say you want it
This is a good idea BO and I'm down. Unfortunately I can't do it on my home computer but when I have down time at work I can get started. I'm very good with photoshop, but I'm a little autistic when it comes to design (as I am a scientist and we typically make things very clean). So I may need help with the artist end of things.
Gavin Cox
So, what kinds of graphics are we working on first? Straight agit-prop? Refutations of aut-right arguments? Raiding tools of some sort?
So we should look for a topic now, what do have in mind?
Benjamin Robinson
Zig Forums has graphs with no info or sources. We on the other hand could use some infographs.
Logan Phillips
We should find a specific topic that motivates enough people here enough to get us to work on it and then test it out on Zig Forumsyps These are meant to refute common arguments. It means that when some Zig Forumsyp wanders into a comment thread and spouts bullshit on racial Autism Levels or people not having jobs because they're lazy, we don't have to manually type out the same argument over and over, we can just reply with a prefab infographic that has the rebuttal in it
Juan Taylor
Ok, updated OP to mention inkscape. Keep in mind we are trying to make reusable templates and guides so people without any skills can make good looking graphics. So it would be great if you could upload the file in the Inkscape file format, or even upload a broader template in that format.
Jace Cox
can you change "free and open source" into "Free as in freedom" when talking about the GNU Image Manipulation Program?
Colton Green
I could but that's silly, I don't think Stallman has ever said he's against calling free software "free and open source."
Okay, though we have to recognize that some people here may just be good at compiling information, or good at writing ad copy, or good at graphic work. This thread could be a good conduit for comrades getting together with their own specific skills to produce infographics in teams of two, three, etc.
Can I just make you a thread about this, so you can discuss it there and not in the infographic organizing thread?
Nolan Rivera
Whoops, forgot about that. Still think it's silly though, and the tripfriend is right that we shouldn't get derailed ITT.
Once we get some good designs and templates together, I'll edit this thread to make it focus on actually creating the content, or make a new thread.
John Moore
I just noticed, the template you posted in /file/ is returning a 404 error message.
Adam Moore
weird, is /file/ broken now?
Logan Phillips
Either we defend old socialist experiments or we massively shit on capitalism and at the same time, provide an alternative.. The first will help to remove the stigma behind socialism and the other will help people realise the other option.
Jason Lewis
I have no idea. While we're waiting, I might as well toss out a few ideas for people who are less graphically-minded and tend towards the research or writing ends of this. We can sketch out infographics and drawfriends can spruce them up later on.
I'm down with this. There's loads of opportunities for propaganda.
Owen Cooper
well, you could upload a .zip file there to see if it works.
Dylan Russell
Gotta find what people are most proud about then target that. Personally I think we should target bourgeois liberal "democracy" and disillusion people with the politics of capitalism. Attack their conceptions about how free they are.
Carter Peterson
I don't have any templates and wouldn't know how to fix it anyway. If BO still has the template .zip, he should consider uploading it to mega or mediafire as a backup.
Do you have a specific example of how bourgeois democracy fails workers? These graphics work best when they have a concrete example or target to refer to.
Ian Kelly
Electoral college. Sniff Broken campaign promises. Outright lies. (Dubya em dees) Disregarding people in favour of helping zee upper classes. And scho on and scho on
Aaron Edwards
OK, what argument should we take with it? Also House of Lords in the UK and the Senate in Canada if there's room. Combine these three to find instances where liberal politicians promised pro-worker action and then broke their promises when in power. Include both instances where Tories/Labour, Repubs/Democrats, Liberal-National/Labor, or Parti socialiste/Gaullistes do this to avoid making the infographic appear as a partisan product of the party not being attacked. I also think there's a study out there where representatives and the legislation they pass are completely unresponsive to popular desire, but much more responsive to the desires of the top 1%. Contrast this with instances where street action, mass action, strikes, etc. forced governments to concede reforms/program creation/environmental protection, or to step back from austerity. That's the narrative we want to write here, after all: bourgeois politics typically does little but radical action can bring change.
Brandon Russell
I like dumping on capitalism, many have problems caused by capitalism but they don't realise that. We need to give their problems a name.
Joshua Thompson
Ecshactly. Do you think that an infographic with all that information could be made to look attractive to the eye so that they could be printed off and posted somewhere? I reckon Flinders street stations would look good with some anti-gov propaganda around.
Cameron King
IRL posters are a different breed than online infographics, since you have to deal with lower attention spans. Go with common language, illustrative pictures, one or two sentences to give context, and appeals to national myths. I'm not Australian, but perhaps you could contrast the Eureka Stockade with the various shenanigans of the current government and the previous labor govt.? You'd probably know more about it than I do Maybe an outline like this would work? You'd need a slogan at the bottom to tie things together, about 10 words or less
Exactly. Or better yet, a face. Like how greed in big pharma got a face with that skhreli fuckboy
I guess it would be something like "Australians don't need parties to work together" or something.
If you want to educate people on the specifics, you could possibly add some more words, but avoid sticking an entire blogpost onto a poster. No one is going to stand outside a transit station to read a poster for a whole minute (except for bus stops, possibly)
Lincoln James
Might as well post this here as well.
I'm not exactly an expert in graphic design, but I know my way around enough to put stuff like this together. Having access to indesign really helps, but gimp can get a lot done if you can't get the high end software.
also, if it seems like it's made from a nazi viewpoint, that's intentional you can't use actual socialist or even liberal arguments against these people, you gotta hit them where it hurts
Dominic Peterson
Inkscape cannot be used for image manipulation. You really should use both to do different parts of an image.
Now that I think about it, I'm kind surprised no one made a tool for drag-and-drop, WYSIWYG infographs. I think such a tool could even work online.
So dated it 404ed.
Ayden Morris
This is no time for ideological purity. FOSS is good but pirate Photoshop as well. Learn industry software. After effects has a large library of pirateable plugins to choose from. Sign up to forum.cgpersia.com for ddl links and shit. Creativity belongs to the left. Half of art is stealing, and that includes tools to learn. Fight with all tools available to you.
Benjamin Wright
can I post a .ddl photoshop crack here or is that a bannable offense?
Owen Nelson
it's not ideological, it's practical. also user already mentioned inkscape is better.
There are good anti-nutsacc infographics that attack hitler and the nutsaccs from a socialist perspective (his fake appeals to workers, his alliance with porkies, breaking promised social reform agenda)
How about the torch and flame?
These are great, but whenever possible find a higher resolution copy
Sebastian Perry
The red star.
Austin Gray
tbh these are way too vague.
Carter Adams
Gear and fist is better because it correctly relates the themes of technological determinism and the base superstructure relation
Dylan Myers
no
Easton Thompson
So Trotsky didn't invent racism?
Colton Bell
You might wanna listen to the 2 hour long agonized screams of Ryan Falk AKA "The Alternative Hypothesis" from back when he was still "FringeElements" getting raped by a golden era skeptic who used to go by the channel name "TheSkepticalheretic". I see a lotta info used to BTFO him back in 2011 in that jpg.
like think about it, Zig Forums who gets the high ground is assured to win :^) if you get a big fucking nuke, whats the whole "we are more than you" going to do against a nuke?
I know it's such a small part of the entire info-graphic, but that "how our tax dollars are spent" graph is terrible. Discretionary spending is less than a third of the US budget. The majority of US spending is in "mandatory spending" which is mostly social welfare programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicare, and unemployment compensation, among other things. Considering that "our", the US's tax dollars are spent on both mandatory and discretionary spending, leaving out the part of the budget where most of that money is spent seems dishonest.
Carson Mitchell
Well, it makes more sense if you add "whose taxes are spent" graph
