Things are abuzz at Common Craft these days. The book is coming out very soon and we're working on new tools and services that will help you become an explanation specialist.
For example, we will soon be offering Common Craft members a library of over 500 colored "cut-outs" just like the ones in our videos. These high quality image files can be downloaded and used in presentations or in making Common Craft Style videos. Yay!
Of course, creating a library of cut-outs requires some strategy. For example, people are a big element in explanations and we saw the potential to provide a set of cut-outs with men and women wearing consistent colors. This way, an explanation can use a consistent character, in many different forms, throughout a storyline. To acheive this, we needed to color and scan a lot of images. Here's an example.
We also want to provide a solid set of objects and shapes. We've been using digital images for years and have our own library of Common Craft art, but most needed some color (we cut and color the cut-outs just before shooting). For this new library, we're coloring and digitizing almost every image, by hand. Here's a sample of some freshly colored images.
While we'll start with 500+ images, we plan to consistently add more cut-outs to the library and even do seasonal and topic-based themes. We have some zombie cut-outs around here somewhere.
I'll be talking more about this new kind of membership soon. For now, I have to get back to coloring.
Question for the comments: What kinds of cut-outs would be most useful to you?