Thing 19 - Just for Fun (Online Image Generator)

Well, between the MEMO conference and a family emergency I've been playing catch-up these past few days, but now I'm feeling back in the swing of things again.

As someone who creates and maintains websites for a number of different organizations, I was intrigued by the idea of an online image generator. Fairly often I find myself in need of some sort of graphic, but often run into either not finding the right thing or not being able to use what I want because of copyright issues. And unfortunately I'm not an artist. So this morning I did a bit of investigating and found a few online image generators to play with. (I found some ideas on which ones to try from the School Library Learning 2.0 site

Here's my first try, and ultimate favorite, from Big Huge Labs, where I chose the trading-card creator:

Who better as a test subject than our illustrious former leader, Tom Shaughnessy? There are a LOT of fun tools available here -- create wallpaper, posters, badges, framed pics, and more. (They don't call it "Huge" for nothing!)

Next I tried Comic Strip Generator

Not terribly impressed with this one. It's not very clear (at least if you're in a hurry) how to save your image (I just did the ol' right-click and "save as"). Looks like most of the images available here are pop culture like South Park, The Simpsons, etc. I like those things, but I'm not sure about the licensing rights, so I'm not convinced.

The third (and final, since I can't spend ALL day playing with image generators) is Image Chef:


I think this one comes close or ties with Big Huge Labs - lots of different things to play with, including flower text, license plates, neon, post-it notes, etc. Definitely worth a look!