The Story:
I sometimes play scrabble with my dad and brother at the free, play-via-email,
Pixie Pit
Scrabble website. One Sunday afternoon (September 29, 2002, to be exact),
I decided to redesign the scrabble board score tiles because of the tiny, illegible
type. "Why not?" I thought. "I might as well do something in
return for the great, free, service I'm enjoying from this website. Maybe Pixie
Pit Scrabble will appreciate my redesigned tiles and put them online."
And indeed my work was much appreciated. They put my new tiles online the same
day and added my name to the "Thank
Yous" page. To which I say, "You're welcome and thank you
Pixie Pit for providing this online scrabble game!"
The Design Details:
1. Redesigned type one-pixel at a time. Made sure letters were not anti-aliased
(because as you can see below, anti-aliasing at such a small font size is very
difficult to read). Cleaned up center smiley-face tile.
2. Chose web-safe colors. Made blue "Triple Letter Score" tile lighter
shade of blue so black text would be more legible.
3. Optimized files for size. All 5 of my GIFs are 1.4Kb as opposed to the originals
which were 120Kb.
The Illustration:
Scrabble Books:
For you scrabble-lovers, here are some scrabble book essentials:
1. The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary (Third Edition)
2. Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession
in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players
3. The Scrabble Word-Building Book