Tag: sk1

Student Posts

New Avatar Drop?

Puffishing? Sure, it sounds weird at first; after all, what do fish have to do with writing?

Oddly enough, it came from a mixture of Instagram and my high school fashion class. Levi Prewitt (@levitzo on IG) was one of my greatest inspirations for art as a kid. His beautiful brush strokes and simple, yet impactful compositions enthralled me as a young artist and helped me develop skills in caricatures and color theory. Later on, in high school, one of our projects was to design a print pattern. After scrolling through social media, his unique design of a leather jacket-clad pufferfish struck my eye. I recreated elements of his design by adding spike-like patterns to a denim jacket with a hand-painted pufferfish lady on the back. It was the sickest thing I had ever created.

I still have the jacket to this day and I view it as a mark of being able to take inspiration while maintaining one’s own personal quality. However, transitioning the design into a URL (many iterations were already taken) into a website was a challenge. One of the largest obstacles was how to incorporate my name into the design while keeping the favicon fairly simple and readable. As a result, the avatar is an incredible simplification of my abilities with the first “T” altered into the fish hook.

Truth be told, I’ll probably change this favicon in due time. But for now, a less sick, more cutesy little pufferfish will swim along to another hook.

Sketches

Sketch 1: Avatar

Due: 8/29

Tag: sk1

Objectives:

  • Very basic photo editing
  • Introduction to the concept of Creative Commons
  • Uploading and publishing to your new WordPress site
  • Visual images as representations of complex conceptual topics

Avatar

Once you’ve created your web site, you need an image to represent yourself and/or your site for the class: an avatar. Your avatar can be whatever you want it be but try to create something that both reflects your personality and speaks to the topic for this class in some way.

Start by choosing one or more of your own photos as the basis of the avatar, drawing something yourself and scanning it, or finding one or more Creative Commons-licensed images on Flickr that you can modify. (Make certain to keep a note for yourself of the URL for the photos you use if they are not your own.)

CC-licensed images

Creative Commons licenses work with copyright law so that creators can share their work in a way that allows others to use it with attribution. The video on the left gives a good overview of the concept of Creative Commons licensing. The one on the right gives more explanation of how they work. They are short and worth watching.

You can find CC-licensed images by choosing licensed images on Flickr or with an advanced Google image search.

Edit Photo

Crop and otherwise edit the photo(s) in a photo editing application (like Photoshop or Pixlr). You can create a layered or collage effect, if you’d like. Add your name on your badge in such a way that it’s legible — it can be your full name, just your first name, or the nickname you want to be called this semester.

Your final badge should be square and at least 512 pixels wide and high. Please make certain your badge is square so that it will fit into the design on the student sites page.

Publish

When you’re done, you’ll need to put the image two places, with an optional third:

First

Load the badge into your Media Library and publish it to your site in a blog post. (If adding it as a feature image means that the entire square image won’t display, then also insert the image into the post itself.)

Include information and links in the post about the source(s) for images included in your badge.

Write a paragraph or two about why you chose those images, what aspects of yourself and your interests are represented in your badge, and/or what difficulties you faced in creating the badge.

Please tag your post with the tag “sk1,” plus any additional tags that you think are appropriate.

Second

Go into your dashboard to Design > Customize > Site Identity. Load the image as your site icon (not as the logo).

Finally

If you do not already have a gravatar, create a gravatar account and load your avatar there. From then on, your avatar will show up as your picture when you leave comments here and on other students’ sites.

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