Welcome to the Original new.gif Tribute Page

Note from Kevdo.com's Kevin Crossman

When I started using the World Wide Web in 1995 one of the coolest things was the little new.gif image I saw on a few sites. This image took off like wildfire and soon was everywhere. This is clearly the single most used image in the history of the Web.

I loved the image so much I created a site of new.gif images mostly as a way to find the person who created this image and impacted millions of web users worldwide.  That site lived for several years when I was finally contacted in the summer of 2000. That site has now been transformed into this tribute page.

At last the story of the Original new.gif can be told!

The Story from Original new.gif Creator Matt Libby

I'm pretty sure that I created what you're calling the "original new.gif"

Original new.gif creator Matt Libby

I found your site when I was remembering how cool it was to have created this image that later popped up all over the place (although lately less and less lately, thanks goodness... web graphics design has come a long way) and thinking "wonder what I'll find if I search for 'new.gif' on InfoSeek?”

How it was Created

I know the "original new.gif" is the one I created because (aside from it looking so immediately familiar) the vertex in the upper right corner looks more curvy than pointy (curved up, like counter-clockwise, maybe).

I created this image because I needed something different than what I had available (i.e. a "new.gif" that I scammed from some other site (I thought maybe it was Yahoo! (At Stanford at that point))). The image I had was too tall, because when I used it in-line, it would be bigger (taller) than the font size I was using, and so would cause weird-looking white space to pop up between lines.

The reason the image was too tall was because of the vertical offsets between the letters N, E, and W, which I thought was unneeded and kind of stupid looking.  So I vertically aligned the letters, and then took the yellow color from the "glow" around the letters to make a little "sunburst" pattern around it all.  I guess I was thinking of the little sticker things (sunburst / starburst - shaped) that you sometimes see on ads or packaging.

To draw the sunburst, I just drew a bunch of points (vertices, ultimately) around the image, used the "line" tool to connect the points, and then filled everything in with color.  Then I put my "NEW" letters back on it. The reason I remember the upper-right hand vertex was curved is because that's just how it came out (thanks to the vertices I had connected) and I remember thinking "well that looks kind of crappy", but then thinking "well, I'll just leave it, because no one will notice it, and beside it's cool that only I notice / know it's there".

I don't remember exactly what drawing program I used, but it was some generic thing that came on the Athena (@ MIT) workstation I was on ("xpaint" or some such name).

Where it was First Used

That "new.gif" image there was first used on the Collegiate Christian A Cappella website. The page that best illustrates the original intended use of "new.gif" is List of Groups.

Matt Libby
http://mlibby.net/

Kevdo.com would like to thank Matt Libby for his help and participation with this page.

All images and text appearing on these pages are copyright 2003 by Kevin Crossman, all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted.
Reproduction or retransmission of this material in any form is prohibited without expressed written permission.

This page last modified on Tuesday, June 08, 2004.