Microsoft Gives away Mona Lisa with Silverlight!

  • Article

If you're a software developer and not a graphic artist, you might be a bit overwhelmed when you start using Expression Studio to build your Silverlight applications.  With all of that control, how do create high quality graphics?  The folks in marketing did not mention the one feature that can help here:

  • Cross-Browser
  • Cross-Platform
  • HD-Quality Media
  • Mona Lisa

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That's right!  With every install of Silverlight, you get a vector graphics version of the Mona Lisa, originally painted by Leonardo Da Vinci.  In fact, you get a whole library of great graphics in the Webdings typeface.  Other characters in this typeface include playback buttons for media players 34789:;<=, weather icons

ÕÖ×ØÙÚÛÜÝÞ, call-out graphics ()*+ and many others.   I use i for "more info" hyperlinks and these characters ¾ ¿ for full-screen/windowed buttons.

With Silverlight, you can use these characters as-is scaling, stretching, giving them gradient colors, or you can convert them to vector paths in Expression Blend and customize them however you want.

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Do you use the Webding typeface in your Silverlight application?  Maybe you should try them.