Is this the end for street artists? Probably not. Nonetheless, Tech Crunch today profiles a site called Iconize Me!, which sells digital caricatures. From the site:

"The concept behind Iconize Me! is pretty simple: After sending DV Graphics an order and a photo of yourself, we start off on creating a custom caricature of you (or friend, or relative) based on the photo. The end result is then sent off to you as an icon file (for use on the computer), a GIF file (for use on the internet) and you also have the option of ordering fantastic, high-quality JPEG and PDF files.

Using a fairly basic hand drawing and coloring technique that we call Digital Ink, we are able to provide you with an amazingly high-quality portrait. Every inch of every icon is hand drawn and hand colored in vector format. It's as if you were sitting in front of us and we created your portrait on the spot using natural tools. Unlike our old system, we don't use the paint bucket tool to simply fill in vast areas of color, using tints and shades. Each color now is mixed and created for each individual spot. We do the best we can to replicate real-life drawing."

What's really interesting about this concept is that it has been massively popular - people increasingly find value in digital items, paying more for these caricatures than you might give to the humble street artist. Nonetheless, I still feel that the real value of these items lies in converting them from bits to atoms, and as far as I can see, this service is not being offered. Why don't they connect up to a digital print supplier? I know that I'd pay much more to have the caricature printed as a full-size glossy poster. It would make a great present for a friend, too....

Author Information: Pete Cashmore is an entrepreneur and internet expert. His favorite buzzwords are Ruby on Rails, AJAX, blogging, Googlezon, home fabrication and RSS.

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