Earlier this month I posted a short Photoshop tutorial about the ever changing header on this site. It’s a quip study into the nature of evolutionary branding, from an absurdist’s point of view – in my opinion, the backbone for viral marketing. The tutorial was not designed to actually help anyone who wants to learn Photoshop, so much as it was to manhandle this message.

This morning, however, I woke to find this lovely message in my inbox:

Hello Jeremy,I’m Julia Agnes from Tutorial Kit.There are some nice tutorials on your Repeatpenguin.com website, so we dared to create your author account at Tutorial kit and submit it (www.tutorialkit.com)…I hope you won’t mind listing your tutorial at Tutorial Kit. Please let me know what you think about that.

So I had to check and there it was.

Is the virus spreading? It’s a brilliant tactic in viral marketing, if I don’t say so myself. A tutorial teaching others to create your logo. Spread virus, spread. I can’t help but wonder if there might just be one kid out there, making a ‘penguin’ turkey card for Grandma this Thanksgiving.

Bon-Appétit:repeat

You may have noticed over the last seven or eight months, that the graphic at the top of this site changes every so often. I started this project back in May and have been trying to change the header graphic each month, slowly adding to it, making it bulkier, more “over the top”, in a manner of speaking. If you haven’t noticed, I have a glib sense of humor. Call this my little experiment into “evolutionary branding.”

Seeing as this is a month to give thanks, and in keeping with the spirit of making Indian vests out of brown paper bags, I thought I would share with you, my recipe for making this months Penguin ‘turkey‘ Dinner.

Step 1: Basic Shapes

Start by drawing out the basic shapes that will make up your penguin turkey. Draw each shape on a separate layer. I prefer to use marquee tools when I draw in Photoshop, but many people use vector line tools, like the pen. Use which ever tool you are most comfortable with.

Step 2: Assemble The Pieces

Step 3: Add Shaping

Bringing your penguin turkey to life, is as simple as adding some shaping using the bevel and shadow layer effects.

Step 4: Garnish

No turkey, penguin or otherwise, is complete without the proper fixin’s. For this dish we start with three simple ingredients: citrus fruit, grapes and green herbs. There are no fancy tricks to making these. I used a combination of the same techniques applied to making our penguin turkey. Drawing basic shapes with the marquee, adding some depth with shadowing and beveling, and then a few final touches with the pencil to create water droplets and the spiny herbs.

Step: 5 Plate And Serve

Once you have all the ingredients for your fixin’s, arrange your garnish.

Place your penguin turkey in the middle and enjoy!

Oh, don’t forget a plate, some silver, a napkin and, of course, a place card (best if considered before arranging garnish around penguin turkey).

Enjoy!!!

P.S. If anyone completes this exercise, I’d love to see the results. And I’ll post them here!