Let's face it. We art monkeys seem to run around in different circles than the code monkeys. To a lot of us, it is reminiscent of the cliques from back in grade school.

The open source society can seem distant, exclusive, and even a bit foreboding to artists because of this. It is hard to find the developers behind lots of interesting projects, and even harder to connect with them when you do.

My hope for Visual Flavor Studio is that we will be able to create a community where we can display our artwork so that projects can come to us, but also so that we can easily browse projects looking for artists, too.

I want to have this be something to help the artists behind the open source movement too. By getting involved, your reputation will grow, and if you are interested, you might start getting some nice job offers on the side, too.

Tell your friends. Tell your art class. Artists of the open source society, assemble!

You are the backbone of the open source movement, and any project out there is only as good as you. The credit for the success that the open source movement itself has achieved over the years belongs to you.

But you have had to play two roles a lot. Maybe you like drawing. Conversely, I know that I like to tinker with code a little bit myself.

I do not think I will hurt any feelings if I say that the code produced by an actual disciplined programmer will tend to be better than the code an artist produces.

By the same token, the designs that an actual disciplined artist produces will tend to be better than the artwork a programmer makes.

It is not just a sign of respect from one expert of a field to the expert of another field.

Let us artists do what we do best to help you programmers get back to doing what programmers do best.

It is just logical that way.

It is not easy being a project leader. You have got the vision of how you want things, and in its pursuit you have stayed up way too late more than one night with your beloved team of developers.

And of course, we cannot forget that one question that is always on your mind. You know the one. "What else can I do to get my project even bigger?"

This is where having actual disciplined artists can help.

Your programmers are experts in writing good programs, but it is the designers who are experts in making those programs (and web sites, interfaces, and so on) look nice and feel addictive.

The goal of Visual Flavor Studio is to help projects like yours take on your bigger corporate rivals by helping you populate your projects art and marketing teams with dedicated art and marketing experts "the open source community way."

Let the artists do the artwork; let the coders do the coding.