Hi All

I was imagineering the other day ( see daydreaming ) and wondered what a " smiley face" would say if you could put words in its mouth. Instead of the usual black curved line for a mouth, how about using text. If you used a font like " impact" or some other condensed font, it would look like any other smiley face at first glance. A closer look would reveal the message that Smiley was telling you. The message could be anything, such as personalised birthday wishes, retirement etc. It could be humorous, serious, congratulatory, or anything in between.Smiley has been around forever, but I've never seen him speak his mind. If you wanted to make "reading his lips" a bit of a challenge, you could type the text with no puncuation or spaces, perhaps all in upper case, or in the case of a sentimental gift, you could make it easy to read.
The round shape would be perfect for clocks, buttons,etc. The background could be any color or clear, to enable printing on colored paper. If the text line always started in the centre of the smile, it should be easy to keep symetrical.
Depending on your sense of humour, you could have a lot of fun with what comes out of a Smiley's mouth.
Enough rambling, just a thought.
Regards
Jim

Hi

Do you have an example of hat you mean please?

Hi Terry

I'll try and get a few examples together and upload them asap

Jim

Hi All

Here are a few examples that I quickly put together in Illustrator. The curve of the text line - mouth line, needs some work to be symetrical, but hopefully you can get the idea. The text can be done in an easy to read style, as in the first two examples, or in a condensed/ upper case style that makes reading Smileys lips, a bit more of a challenge or puzzle.
Since the text can be personalised, the idea could be used for anything from campaign buttons, greeting cards, mouse pads, clocks and anything else you can think of. With a little sense of humour, Mr. Smiley could take on a personality all of his own LOL.
If it was done in a software program, things like keeping the text centred, and the right size, would be a lot easier. Different colored backgrounds could be available, or a transparency that could be printed on coloured paper. All sorts of different options could be installed such as shape and colour of his eyes, male female gender, different shaped mouth lines, etc. See what you think.
Off to " Imagineering Dept." LoL

Jim

Hi

Ah yes, we have a feature for this coming, it is a new WordArt named "Pathed" which will draw text around any path. This will be applied to all new engine software, eg. Create A Gift, Alphabet Names, Create A Cake etc. including upcoming new updates such as Create A Clock which uses the same engine.

Hi Terry

That sounds great, looking forward to it. It would open up a whole new world full of possibilities. Any estimated date of arrival?
Thanks
Jim

Hi

We cannot give a date sorry, but we expect not that long as the WordArt development is complete and just needs moving over to the applications.