Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/09/05/new-ranger-rick-design-aims-fo.html
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7 Likes
I like it. Despite it being lean times back then, I did have Ranger Rick magazine as a kid. I LOVED the Bald eagle issues they put out once a year.
10 Likes
Apologies for being a cranky jerk about this, but I’ve got a couple of pennies to toss around. Free pennies!
The new design is a move in the right direction, but it needs more time in the oven. This update of RR looks like a bunch of basic geometric shapes tossed down on a table top. His ears aren’t attached to his head, they’re stuck to the hat instead. His muzzle, eyes and skull don’t seem to be part of the same character, there’s very little flow. His pose is flat and stiff. There’s too much detail to the icon on his hat.
The original design in charming, if old-fashioned, and feels unified. Even the cgi version has a lot going for it, in terms of clarity, balance of large and small shapes, and overall form. The ugly aspect of the cgi version is first and foremost the terrible shading, which drops to that common hideous black in the shadow.
Maybe if they had gently modified the cgi design as an illustrated character they would have had more luck bringing it all together.
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My grandma used to get me a Ranger Rick subscription every year when I was a little boy. I loved it…
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See also the trend away from “cereal box” photoshop shading.
the new lucky charms…
… hopefully replacing this fucking nightmare:
18 Likes
Yeah, this new “improved” design looks downright amateurish to me as it is. And the sensibilities behind it seem already dated, even more so than the older designs. I’m not just saying this because I got the magazine as a kid, when they were apparently still using the '60s design. Well, maybe I am, but it’s still true.
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I would describe it as “Disney-esque”. The facial expression feels so much like Mickey Mouse.
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Yeah. “Looking like a low rent Flash cartoon circa 2002” is not exactly “timeless.” The older, more naturalistic painted version of the character seems like it best fits the bill in that respect.
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Make him “edgy.” Kids like “edgy,” right?
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I love that raccoon!
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I used to have the “official” binders to hold them.
My favorite - or at least best-remembered - story involved a family desiring over a baby bird sickened by pesticides and letting their yard grow wild.
Curiously, my old-school Republican parents had 2 acres of South Dakota land they re-planted with prairie grasses, and literal wildflowers sprang up.
6 Likes
It looks like a cheap/low-rent ripoff of Disney, and there’s loads of those floating around everywhere so I’m not particularly into the redesign. I would prefer something closer to the original drawing but a bit simplified, at least the original drawing looks original and I can tell real thought was put into how the character looks rather than creating a generic raccoon
4 Likes
Yes, the original is perfectly great and looks like it has fur and claws, while the latest does look cobbled together, and overall like a cereal box mascot. One could imagine the original saying something interesting, but the new one just looks like a promotional vehicle that would blather slogans.
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But does the next door neighbor still think it’s a snake?
I like it. Reminds me a bit of the new Mickey Mouse cartoons, which are jaunty and raffish rather than having the babyish toddler look of recent decades.
I was always bother by the fact that the old Ranger Rick looked like he was wearing Hammer Pants.
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Ranger rick
What?
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Piacket, a little ‘spectrum’ of being spoken for by previous native tribes’ seishi, the continuing sense that flora and fauna in the wild are not friends, and occasional tensions between the Ranger character class and the alphabet soup roles (I found the geological niche in which stink bugs are the most sensible and appreciable adaptation; and kill orders from APHIS) are indeed longevous character totems.
5 Likes
