It seems that we’ve gotten to the point in the semester where we’ve covered most of what we’ll learn and are now being slowly let free to create whatever our hearts desire and I couldn’t be happier about it. I was hoping that we would be gifted another week to do whatever kind of assignments we’d like and my dreams came true. While the mashup assignments still had some direction, there were plenty of assignments that were graphic design based, which is exactly what I wanted to do. On top of this, being able to remix any graphic design assignment made it even that much better. So basically this week was all about incorporating these reimagination elements into one of my passions, graphic design. Let’s get into it.

Mashup Assignments

I decided to create my very first assignment this week, which is something I’ve thought about doing before but never had much inspiration to come up with anything. This week, though, I found it perfect to create my own mashup assignment to help push me to do a small project that I’ve been wanting to complete for a while. I designed an assignment that instructs you to combine your favorite Twitch emote with your favorite Twitch streamer, or some element of them. This part was quite challenging for me, though could be quite simple for others depending, but I added a twist. If you were able to get your emote activated in the streamer’s Twitch channel and have a meaningful and exciting interaction with chat and the emote, you get an extra star! (That’s 4 stars!) I used this opportunity to write about my experience with the new emote in my blog post and how it has already impacted my membership in an online community. Make sure to check the post out!

For my second mashup assignment, I wanted to continue playing around with GIMP to crop and insert elements into various scenes so I took on the Photo Mash assignment. Though it was instructed to take 2 actors, I wanted to use Bob Ross and another joyous individual, Santa Claus! While it may be slightly immature, and potentially walking the line of inappropriate, I had a ton of fun making this. The narrative that I was able to create with the piece is super comedic but there’s also something almost heartwarming about the final result. This assignment was also worth 4 stars.

Remix Assignments

For my first remix assignment, I wanted to go back and look at a prompt that I had been interested in before but could never think of any solid ideas for, the Event Poster assignment. The remix was to make the poster advertising DS106 in some way, so I instantly thought of a dance party in a themed club. I tossed around a few ideas, pulled out a picture of Bob Ross that I’ve used before in a bit of a different way, and got to work. I added in a couple Easter eggs for a bit of fun and am very happy with the result.

For my final assignment of the week, I remixed the Favorite Movie Quote assignment, being given new instructions to include Waldo into the design in some way. I was able to use some interesting techniques to achieve an effect on Waldo that makes him fit better into the background, though upon closer inspection it’s clear that he is only at 55% opacity. Regardless, he’s so small, or “distant,” in the photo that it’s easy to overlook this. In fact, it’s easy to overlook him entirely!

Daily Creates

On Wednesday, I felt inspired by pop culture to put a fun twist on the prompt. I’m not sure if this would make Will Smith laugh or make him stand up and slap me.

On Thursday, I received a prompt from a self-learning AI to receive “space butterfly” as a prompt for something to create, so I killed two birds with one stone and drew an astronaut butterfly.

On Friday, I was in a good mood and felt the joy that Bob would get from painting, so I was inspired to make my book about him and the lessons that he can teach about being happy, kind, and always learning.

Closing

Though this week mainly consisted of picking and completing assignments, with there not being as heavy of an emphasis on readings, I still feel as though I learned and grew a lot by creating. It feels very rewarding to be able to set your mind to something and make it happen, even if you don’t have the best understanding of how to do said thing to begin with. This was an excellent week, so now it’s time to walk away and brush the dust off my shoulders.