Another Bridged Gap
This week was a very special week for me as Wednesday, February 16th, was my 22nd birthday! Last year, in the midst of all the craziness with the pandemic and before vaccines were widely available, I wasn’t able to go out and celebrate my 21st. This year, I’m looking forward to being able to celebrate both at once with friends this weekend. To make the week even greater, I got to do all sorts of fun assignments for ds106! Let’s check them out.
Daily Creates
For my first daily create this week, I had to give this picture a soundtrack and/or some dialogue, so I decided to do both and tie them to a broader idea: Home Depot. Whenever I see someone working with tools, especially ones that may make all sorts of *bzzz* *crnnnk* *zzzz* sounds, I instantly think of Home Depot and their theme song. Their slogan, “How Doers Get More Done,” was direct inspiration for the dialogue between the characters, creating a completely cheesy yet fun result.
For my second daily create, I was prompted to write a story about this snake that can play popular songs from the radio. To make things a bit more interesting, I thought I’d tell a bit of a story through a poem. Since snakes don’t have fingers, how else would they play the piano than wiggling and shaking?
The final daily create of the week had us show off a picture of our power snack for ds106! I have this delicious trail mix that I always stay stocked up on right beside me at my desk, so I figured it would be the perfect snack to turn into something new. There isn’t much rhyme or reason behind calling it “munch” or than the fact that I just love the word, but the tagline was something I’ll admit I was quite proud of. My original plan was to make the name of the snack itself rhyme in some way, but I wasn’t coming up with anything too incredible, so I went a different route instead.
Design Thoughts and DesignBlitz
While I’ve always considered myself to be good at picking up on the designs of the world around me, looking deeper into things with an emphasis on what elements there really are to look for has broadened my horizons even more. Learning about Kidd was a great experience, as I’ve heard about him plenty but have never put in the research myself. Though I felt I had a basic understanding of a lot of these concepts, seeing the importance and prevalence of them being stressed by Kidd himself was eye-opening. It was also interesting to hear about the battle between “art” and “design,” as I’ve always thought that they went hand-in-hand, like sister concepts. Regardless, this week was the week for me as I’m extremely passionate about design, so learning more about someone who is a pioneer of sorts in the craft was a great experience.
The DesignBlitz this week for me was a tricky one to pull off, but I think the personal twist I put on it worked well for me. Because I don’t really go out because of the pandemic and high risk family members, I figured this activity would be my downfall. Thankfully, I was able to troubleshoot this problem on my own and come up with a remedy that was both fun and inspiring. I took this opportunity to do a scavenger hunt of sorts in my house, trying to find great examples of the different design concepts within my own home. I was able to find all sorts of examples, but the ones I was happiest with and focused on the most were color, typography, balance and rhythm. It’s extremely interesting to look at the world around you through the lens of a designer, taking note on the different colored cutlery in your kitchen, the unique appearance to the typography of the wholesome message in your hallway, the symmetry and balance of your entertainment center in your living room, or the rhythm within the rungs and steps of your staircase. Though I struggled with getting high quality images of most of these things, I felt that the experience of taking time to think about these elements was the main takeaway here.
Design Assignments
Inspired by a classmate in the Discord, I thought that taking on the “Vogue Challenge” assignment would be fun. Turns out some people appreciated what I made, too, which is great! I started by looking through old photos to find one where I both looked like I was modeling and the lighting/other elements made sense for a magazine cover. I had a few potential options, but upon scrolling all the way to the beginning of my camera roll, I found the perfect photo. There is a bit of light reflecting somewhere to create a hazy strip effect across the piece and the colors work well together. In the photo, I’m the clear point of interest, without any distractions surrounding me. It was perfect. With that, I followed the prompt, adding text saying “VOGUE” in Times New Roman at the top, with a color I got by using the eyedropper on my right shoulder. I wanted to create a bit of a narrative out of the piece, so considering it is quite an old picture, I decided to make the caption hint about my life and achievements.
This specific assignment spoke to me as I have always been one to care about the underprivileged, always wanting to make a difference where, when, and how I can. While this didn’t directly make an impact on anyone, the idea behind it match up with my passion for charity and helping others, so I flocked to this assignment. I recently watched a video from a YouTuber that did some great things for underprivileged students in regards to art and it was incredibly inspiring. If you’d like to learn more about that, check out the blog post above. This inspired me, though, to make my fake charity have something to do with art, and with art it only makes sense to have it also themed around Bob Ross. Because of his influence and impact on the world of art, it only made sense to create “The Joy of Painting Foundation” in his honor. Everything in this piece kind of just came together on it’s own and I didn’t struggle much, using a detailed yet subtle design, with clear indicators at how to contribute to the charity. In hindsight, I believe I should’ve made the font at the top a bit bigger, but at the same time I think keeping Bob’s face silhouette as the main focus still works very well.
For my final assignment in a busy but fun week of creating, I wanted to tackle this assignment that made me laugh out loud upon reading. I’ve always loved the idea of images that very clearly set a certain vibe or tone paired with text that is completely opposite of what you’d expect, but I had never tried making anything like that myself. This was the perfect opportunity to do so and honestly, it was a blast! There were so many different directions I could take this concept, but I felt that “love” is a pretty familiar topic to plenty of people that would work for this prompt very well. I used Unsplash to find the perfect picture showing raw human love with beautifully majestic colors in the background. When trying to think of what message to put overtop of the image, I thought of two of my favorite insults that don’t necessarily hurt to your core but sting in a different way: cringe and overrated. It was perfect! I shared this with a few friends and family members after creating it and it got all sorts of great reactions.
Closing
To wrap it all up, I want to touch on the last thing I said about sharing my creations and getting great reactions. This class has allowed me to make some things I never would have ever thought to make on my own, pushing me to be creative and expand my horizons. While that is fantastic on it’s own, what’s made things even greater is having the opportunity to share with others, from people in class to friends online to distant family. Plenty of the things I’ve made have really made people’s days or inspired someone somehow and it’s the most heartwarming thing. On top of that, I’ve really enjoyed watching this class create. There are so many talented individuals that I’m lucky enough to call my peers and each day I’m excited to check the posts page to see what new things people have made.
All in all, this class has been really great to me, and this week stands as proof for that. Now, I guess we’ll leave it at that, with another bridged gap, getting me one step closer to fully ascending into my Bob Ross Form.
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