Now that the awesome Brizzly web app has integrated my revision of their 16-pixel icon, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a responsibility to its continued iconographic success.

Sometime last week, the folks at Thing Labs debuted a nifty new navigation paradigm with the addition of service-specific tabs. My pal Calvin Ross Carl hepped me to their inclusion, and we both noticed two oddities in their implementation.

The Twitter and Facebook icons are being sized down to fit the height of the tab, resulting in some degradation of quality as the browser struggles to choose the right pixels to maintain or omit. Secondly, if Helvetica Neue is not installed, a CSS bug may cause a serif font family to display instead of a sans-serif.

Since my Ice Cream Social Icon Pack seemed visually harmonious with the revised bear, I decided to remedy both of these problems via a quick user script. The result is much more consistent with the rest of the Brizzly header:

Firefox users must install the Greasemonkey extension to use the script, Chrome users can install it like any other extension. It has been tested in Firefox 3.6, Chrome 5 and Opera 10.5 on a Windows 7 PC.

Install Better Brizzly Social Icons 1.1

1.1 Update: Fixed to work with the Picnic update, though no Picnic icon has been created… yet!

My girlfriend’s sister and brother-in-law have a sweet, quirky bulldog named Bud (technically Bud, Jr., after his papa’s nickname). Like my parents’ dog, Suzie, I’ve found myself doodling him incessantly. There’s just something so endearing about dogs with hopelessly distinctive personalities.

Two Christmases ago, I decided to make Bud’s owners, Lyndsey and Keith, matching t-shirts celebrating their pride and joy. Using a reference photo, I thought a thick-lined, vector representation might be most amusing.

The shirts came in on time, but ended up being a pinch too small due to American Apparel’s sizing strangeness. Nevertheless, they elicited the laughter I was hoping for, so all was not lost.

Later, I helped Lyndsey re-purpose the artwork for their first human child’s room, but in a ginchy new infant-Warhol color scheme.

Animals are way more fun to caricature than people. Dogs and cats are intellectually incapable of comprehending abstracted images of themselves, which means they can’t complain about or take offense to them (which is why I avoid caricaturing friends and family).

I was surprised and happy this past Thursday to take home an adorable little robot trophy from the WebVisionary Awards for my Twitter/Google Feed API mashup, TweetPlus.

I’m humbled to have been selected by such an amazing panel of judges (including Armin Vit and Brad Smith) in a competition dominated largely by accomplished companies like ISITE, Pop Art, eROI, Fashion Buddha and many more. It’s an honor to have even been nominated.

My succinct acceptance speech went something like this:

Since I created TweetPlus by myself, I have no co-conspirators to thank. So instead, I’d like to thank every other web nerd out there who creates apps just for the fun of it.

Thanks to everyone who offered words of encouragement and praise. Maybe now I’ll have to think about a TweetPlus update with OPML support for mass subscribing. What do you think?

Brizzly is my favorite web-based Twitter application. Regular readers of this blog may remember my redesign of the service’s favicon for Peter Wooley’s Brizzly Favicon Alerts script for Greasemonkey.

Shortly after the script’s debut, I was contacted by the folks at Thing Labs (they make Brizzly) to talk about integrating my icon into the app.

A few months later, a new Brizzly interface debuted. Hidden in plain sight among the numerous UI and feature improvements, my 16 square pixels of glory perched unassumingly at the top of the page.

This is why I love the Internet. If you release a compelling product, you’ll inspire users to contribute ideas, feedback, or even design assets. Keep your ear to the ground, and you’ll swiftly reap the rewards.

I’m thrilled that TweetPlus (my other Twitter app) is a finalist in the “Mashup” category of the 2010  WebVisionary Awards.

Sometimes, 140 characters just isn’t enough. TweetPlus uses the nifty Twitter and Google Feed APIs to show you where people you follow are blogging.

A companion to the excellent WebVisions conference, the WebVisionary Awards Show is open to attendees and non-attendees alike. Join me this coming Thursday at the Someday Lounge for food, drink, PowerPoint karaoke and to witness the fate of TweetPlus.