A Cedar Park, Texas based startup called Mikonoclast, LLC recently launched Mikons.com, a site for self expression, social networking and commerce. Through clip art. The service is all about little icons; mikons is presumably a play on “my icons.”
You can claim, share or draw your own mikons in a shockwave drawing feature. The sharing function allows you to put a creative commons license or traditional copyright on your mikons. You can also keep them private and hidden if there are any mikons you’d like to keep as your personal little secret.
“Mikons,” the company says on the front page, “are your own personal tags that symbolize your life: your challenges, your dreams and your passions.” If you’d like to put these symbols for your life on t-shirts or stickers, that option appears to be coming soon.
The site is very functional and looks great. The company is especially proud of the drawing technology – which they say is “the first online vector editing graphic tool in the world.” This particular application of that technology seems to warrant most – either thankfulness that some startups have a sense of humor or existential concern that anyone would want to symbolize their inner self with clip art.
The company says that their service is similar to timeless visual communication methods throughout history, like petroglyphs. They hope that people will put their mikons on MySpace profile pages, blogs and a wide variety of physical merchandise that will be available soon.