Have you ever wanted to hire a professional artist? Maybe one who paints the sky? Maybe one who isn’t really human but has a passion for telling humans’s stories? Well don’t you worry, I have a business card just for you from a good friend of mine if you’re interested in hiring them.
I’m sure they would love to paint up the sky for you
For my Design Assignment, I followed this design prompt:
We’re reaching a time in our lives where where professionalism is key. Use photoshop to create your own business card to advertise who you are.
Well, I didn’t use Photoshop, mostly because I have no idea if we get Photoshop with our school accounts, and I definitely don’t have Photoshop, so instead, I used everyone’s favorite free, online alternative: CANVA!!
I had essentially a few ideas: I needed this to look like a painting and it HAD to be associated with the sky. I mean, that’s Sol’s whole purpose: paint the sky, tell the stories. That’s really all you have to get! It’s that simple. I also wanted it to be coherent and use the same colors, so I grabbed colors from the image I grabbed from Canva of the sky painting, and used those colors for the text. I also didn’t want it to be overwhelmed with text, because I thought the painting should be the main focus, as that’s what Sol does.
I actually kind of like this! I think I would like to, maybe sometime, come up with other designs for business cards for Sol, test what other ideas I could come up with, things like that. So this was a lot of fun!!
I started this activity with hesitation, really not excited to be creating AI art, so I must preface this by saying that the only reason I am doing this is for a grade, but also the willingess to learn, but that I really don’t see anything good about using AI to create art.
I wanted to work with my cat and create images of her and see what it could come up with. I used Stable Diffusion for this.
The first prompt I input was “calico cat” because, well, my cat is a calico cat. Here is what it spat out:
It doesn’t look like my cat, and it definitely feels more like a tabby calico than just a calico, but I knew I’d have to refine details to get closer to the image I wanted. Already, I was feeling a little weird looking at it. It has that flair that AI art has that makes me uneasy.
Next, I input “closeup of a shorthair calico cat with green eyes with a bigger build” and this is what it gave me:
It’s closer. The cat definitely looks a little more thin than my beautiful, chunky (said with love) cat. The patterns are still a little off, but I didn’t give it specifics about the pattern, but it does have mostly the right idea. I like the detail it has in some areas, but then there are other areas that just look airbrushed in and it makes me feel weird.
Next thing I told the AI to generate was “shorthair calico cat with green eyes, a pink nose, with a bigger build in the style of Mona Lisa,” which it responded with this:
And hey, that’s starting to look like my cat! But it’s not in Mona Lisa style, but that may be my fault because I still had it set as the “photograph” setting. So here’s me retrying without any settings:
Now I’m confused, because it’s like half Mona Lisa-esc but also just not at all. So I decided to play around with some of the model settings
This is the same prompt but in the Rococo model, and it’s actually really cute, I won’t lie. I like the random bow that appeared and the colors.
I did one more just to see what it would spit out:
This is in the Baroque style. I guess, of all of them, it did get the Mona Lisa style down the most, but not entirely. I’m sure I might just be putting in the wrong queue words or not being specific enough, but I think it’s cool.
My overall thoughts on this?
It’s cool, and fun to play around with, but not cool or fun enough to ignore the threat that it poses to artists.
I think it’s really, really threatening. Even if it doesn’t take from artists like people said, how can you prove that it doesn’t? It learns from inputs and it learns from taking images and prompts and anything you can find on the Internet to build it. It learns, and it implements what it learned into its model for future purposes. It feels relentless, like publishing any art on the Internet puts you at risk of having it taken and tweaked just so someone who knows how to type in a good prompt can get the same output. There isn’t creativity in prompt-making, but there is creativity in creating art.
It’s not art, it’s data, but the data is built off of previous ideas of artists, taking it and transforming it into some code to create more data.
Please take all of my photos with a grain of salt . . . sometimes you have to stretch the question a little bit and read between the lines and allow some creativity! But let’s get into this!
Here is my screenshot of when I started my photoblitz! As you can see, I stared at 9:10 (I actually started at 9:08 but I forgot to screenshot)! I’m very excited to say that this only took me around 10 minutes
Place an object in your shot that’s hard to find or recognize.
(Don’t look at the time I forgot to screenshot before I started!!!!!)
The thing I took about this prompt is that I can choose whatever I want to be the hidden or unrecognizable object in the image, and so can the audience, and it can be different per each one! Personally, the unrecognizable object in this is the bottle! It’s actually a stress bottle (you shake it up and glitter just floats around and it’s relaxing), but I don’t think anyone would have gotten that because of the way it’s out of the foreground and not in the center of the photo. I wanted people to have to look at these objects and question which one was the unrecognizable or hidden object and what they thought about them!! I also didn’t move anything because I wanted it to be natural.
If only shoes could talk. Tell their story in a photo, either on or off someone.
Do you know what the story is behind these shoes? The story is that these are absolute clown shoes. Size 12 in Women’s. Now, I wear between a 10-12, but these just made me look like I have clown shoes and I think that is so so so funny. Also, they tell a story with the text! “I’ve Got Cattitude,” my silly little quirky gift from my mom for Christmas. I do not have cattitude. My feet did not fit in the shoes. The story is that nothing fits at all. I kind of wish I showed that more, but I wasn’t sure how? Maybe I could’ve put them on and shown that they don’t fit but I really did not want to take a picture of my feet!
Make a photo containing or suggesting fire and/or smoke.
Ahh, my fireplace. Personally, this was a very easy picture for me, but I’m actually happy to have taken the photo. If any of you lived in the area during January 2022 (I believe?), you may remember when it snowed so much and we lost power for days. At my house, I remember sleeping in front of the fireplace or sitting there reading a book with five blankets on me. It was actually really comforting! If any of you have a fireplace, whether or not you’re stuck with no power or in the snow, I think you should sit down in front of the fire with a book! It’s very comforting and relaxing to me.
Make a photo of something upside down that is never seen that way.
I’m cheating a little bit here . . . this is my cat, Cat (yes, that is her real name, I will tell you the story if you ask), and she’s not entirely upside down, because I was not about to make her suffer by putting her upside down for a photo for an assignment. She would have been very mad at me, so instead, I tried to make her look upside down at me. Cats are never upside down, you only ever see them upright, and cats only ever see upright, but here she is, looking upside down at me while stretching her head back! You gotta think out of the box but just trust me.
Take a picture that reminds you of your childhood.
Storytime!! I was born and raised until I was 15 in Kansas! I moved to Virginia because my dad got a better paying job in D.C., so I’ve been here since then. This picture shows a drawing of that that one of my friends from Kansas made and painted (the frame) for me before I moved, depicting my move from Kansas to Virginia. It reminds me of Kansas, which reminds me of my childhood. Also, it kind of looks like it’s collected dust, so it’s clearly been sitting for a while and has aged.
An instrument that measures something.
Please . . . work with me for a minute, okay? Take a walk with me.
Was anyone else taught to use the space between their knuckles to measure an inch? This is what I’m trying to get at. I genuinely don’t know if it’s accurate or not (pretty sure not because we all have different sized hands), but this is what I was taught! And I searched for a ruler or a tape measure in this house before I had this genius idea . . . Maybe my knuckle isn’t an instrument but who said an instrument had to be a real instrument? I think anything can be an instrument if you are able to use it as such, and I definitely used the inch-knuckle trick when I was younger (and still today . . . but no one needs to know that).
They’re all around. Make a photograph of a wheel near you.
These are my desk chair wheels!! There isn’t really a story behind them, they were the nearest wheels to me (right under me). Also, I think the picture is kind of cool . . . nobody loves the use of lines in photos as much as I do . . . also if you squint you can see me in the reflection but I was also trying to hide.
And that’s time!
As you see, it only took me around 10 minutes to do, but I actually had a really good time. I think it allowed me to appreciate the little things around my desk and around my room, things that have collected dust or haven’t been noticed as much as others. I feel pretty good now!!
Personally, in my day to day life, I’m constantly taking pictures of little things because I love appreciating those little things. It feels very nice to me! This taught me to appreciate the little things near me, whereas I usually appreciate the little things away from me. I just think that’s really neat.
Watching and reading all of the articles and videos related to designing of covers was very interesting! You don’t really think about the thoughts behind the cover or the poster or the intro because you become too focused on the actual media, that you just go immediately into it without a second thought.
It really made me think about the whole idea of “don’t judge a book by its cover,” which I always thought was so interesting to me. Personally, I think you should judge books by their covers. If you aren’t judging it by the cover, you are just opening a book or a show or something just for the sake of watching it. I feel like you have to acknowledge that cover to understand the media, to understand what you’re getting into.
It’s almost like first impressions, which we talk a lot about in Social Psychology. Do they matter, and if they do, why do they matter? Why do we make them? Are they fair? Are our first impressions right?
It’s human nature to make those first impressions, but the honest answer to the other questions is that it depends. Sometimes they matter, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they are fair, sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes they are right, sometimes they are not. It’s situational! And I feel like this applies to covers too! Because we never can be sure if the first impression is right, I think it’s important to not rely on first impressions, but I also think that it is completely fair and natural to make that first impression.
There is so much work put into designing these covers to give you that first impression. In a sense, the designer is retelling the story through another format. If you don’t like that telling, you may not like the book or the show or whatever media it is. But, you also may love the story despite not liking the cover. Why does it matter?
We make these assumptions and impressions so fast, too fast for us to even realize. You can look at a cover once and immediately decide your thoughts on it. But that makes me wonder, why?
Then that also makes me wonder, why are some covers easier to judge or quicker to be judged?
I just think it’s really important to acknowledge how designers choose to retell these stories in ways that can speak to the audience. The design is the first impression, they have to make it speak out and stand out towards the audience. They have to be so important that they are judged quickly, that attention is brought to them, and I think it’s okay if that attention is good or bad. Attention is attention and publicity is publicity.
I think my thoughts are kind of all over the place, but this is just so interesting to me on so many different levels! I personally love judging books by covers and making my own thoughts and impressions because then I like to see how they’ve changed by the time I’ve actually consumed the media! It’s like a journey to me!
I did exactly the opposite of what I intended last week. “I’m gonna not wait until Friday to do everything!” I said. And then I did that. Sort of.
I started with just doing the daily creates each day, but I didn’t do anything else until Thursday night, and then didn’t even finish everything because I was exhausted. I’m also confused because, even when I click for it to post immediately, it will end up saying that it posted the day after. So, please take the dates with a grain of salt or at least trust me that I did them on the days that I say I did them. It’s 8:15 pm on Friday 1/26/24, and I’m sure it’s going to say this posted on 1/27 BUT PLEASE TRUST ME!!! It will not be posted 1/27!!!!
Anyways . . . my birthday was on Sunday, so here is the tale of my first week (in ds106) as a 20-year-old.
On Monday, I started with the Daily Create for 1/22/24, where I wrote a Fibonacci poem to vent about my feelings. Here’s what I wrote:
“How can I show you the light that I see within you, that you shed delicately to brighten my world, when you are suffering deep inside a dark maze with seemingly no exits? You allow the sun to shine, beyond all the troubles of the world. I wish I could help you see it.”
I talked about it on the post if you want to view the full story behind it, but I thought this was able to help me get my feelings out. I was hurting because my friend was hurting, and I needed them to know that they were the light in the dark world, and I wished they could see that.
On Tuesday, I also only did the Daily Create for 1/23/24. I made my own version of the Voynich manuscript. Here’s what I made:
I talked about it in the post as well if you want more details, but I really just tried to be as random as possible. I wanted the letters and drawings to be similar to real letters and letters, so that you would look at it and acknowledge that it was saying something, but you couldn’t translate it. I liked this one because I think everyone gets to imagine it says whatever they want, and there is no real answer on what it says, or what story it tells.
On Wednesday, I only did the Daily Create for 1/24/24. I wrote a poem about the image I saw, which I’ll share here as well:
“Is it smoke or is it mist? that reaches up like a fist, that rises from the grass to the sky, covering the trees that stretch high In the hills, is it raining heavy or is it just the clouds that carry the weight of the world around silencing the earth to no sound? Quiet. Dreary. Gray.“
I wasn’t sure about this one, it took me a little longer than I wanted it to. The story behind it is that, I don’t know what’s going on, but I can see multiple different stories that it could tell. I explored that thought through asking questions in the poem about it. People seemed to like this one, which boosts my ego, because I definitely don’t think it’s good at all. It ends upruptly because I didn’t want to work on it anymore.
On Thursday, I finally did some work! I started with the Daily Create for 1/25/24 to get my brain working, and here is what I made with to show the exiting of the toxic Internet:
I’m now realizing that it didn’t upload as a gif, but it’s supposed to be a gif, where the pointer clicks the exit button . . . I guess you can just imagine this.
This one was probably my worst Daily Create. I wasn’t super inspired, and I just whipped out Canva and tried to portray the toxicity through factories and green clouds of smoke. I think it would have been cooler if the pointer actually clicked EXIT like I intended.
I also did a Visual Assignment from the Assignment Bank. I chose this photo that I had taken a while back last year:
You can see the full story about it on the actual post I linked, but my favorite thing about this was that it tells an uncertain story. There are a lot of questions about it, yet no answers. I think I’ll reference this a lot this semester, but I just thought that everyone could make up a different story about it, but none of us would ever know the true story about it, not even me.
I did one more assignment from the Assignment Bank, a Writing Assignment where I wrote about the end of the world from AI but from the viewpoint of an AI. This was so hard to write for me because I tried to think really technical and not put emotions into descriptions, because the entire point of what I wrote was that the AI doesn’t feel. It has no feelings, it’s not built to feel. It can describe feelings, read humans’s feelings, but it cannot feel anything. I think the other AI in the story learned how to feel, but this one did not. Maybe it was a faulty AI, but I think it is my preferred version of AI. I’m afraid of AI feeling, it makes them feel more human, so that’s why I wanted to explore one not feeling anything. I wanted readers to feel pity for the AI because it’s just different from the others.
I was kind of proud of that one, so thank you for reading it.
On Friday, I did everything I hadn’t done, starting with, of course, the Daily Create for 1/26/24. I created this recreation of the infographic/poster about books for everyone:
I’m not entirely pleased with this one. I noticed a lot of things I could have done afterwards, but it was just a simple work in Canva to get my brain working. It was kind of fun, because I hadn’t done graphic design in a long while, so it was fun fiddling with the text and the formatting of things. I talked about what I did in this more in the actual post.
The last Assignment Bank assignment I did was a Design Assignment in which I designed an ad/poster for a charity. I created one for donated eSims to Gazans. Here is my design:
I don’t want to sound like a broken record, so I won’t keep repeating myself, but I made this so that I could promote support for Palestine. 26000+ Palestinians have been murdered since October 7th, and that’s not including the innocent Palestinians who were killed all throughout history. I don’t think it matters what side you’re on now, when so many people have died. I wanted to be able to share this in case it meant anything or informed anyone of anything. I hope it did. Please continue to stay informed on what’s happening outside of our country.
It’s occurring to me now that two of the assignments were supposed to be AI based . . . but I’m not too upset that I forgot that because I’m glad I was able to use my blog to share support for Palestine. If I lose points for that, it’s a sacrifice I would be willing to make.
Another thing, please take a look at the bottom of the post for different links to offer support for people in Palestine. Here is a link that is easy: all you do is click one button and it helps a donation be sent. If you bookmark the site or visit it every day, you can click it every day. It’s costless but helpful.
Today I also created my Course Character. It comes at no surprise that they are sun-based. I actually had a lot of fun with this one!! I got to doodle and sketch, something I haven’t done in a long while, and do character design based on my own thoughts. I wanted to incorporate Sol (my character) into something that’s important to me and also what this class is about: storytelling.
Sol’s purpose is to tell people’s stories. Sol is the sun, and the sun paints the sky with new pictures every day, every minute, different all over the globe. The sky are the stories of our lives, Sol is the painter.
It makes me smile and feel warm thinking about the sky being a form of storytelling. Think of cloudwatching. You make a story out of a cloud that looks like a certain shape or animal. You create a story for it.
There’s so many stories to be told, big and small, and that’s what Sol does. They are also the risen sun in the blog title!
I also read the Techno-Optimist Manifesto and made a Reflection on it. This allowed for my first conversation with Dr. Oblivion, who I side eyed carefully. He started out sarcastic and blunt when I explained how the Manifesto failed to address the environmental concerns, but then Dr. Oblivion shared that he agreed with me about my fears of AI harming the environment. I also talked to him about how this kind of technology would enforce people into slave-like work to obtain the material.
It felt like the Manifesto was best case scenario, but that there were too many consequences that it didn’t address. Dr. Oblivion also told me to take it with a grain of salt, understand both the pros and limits of this kind of technology, and I think that’s what I’ll be doing.
Personally, I don’t think the Techno-Optimist Manifesto fits me, but it was eye opening to read from the point of view of those who feel this way and, although it was hard, it was fun going back and forth with Dr. Oblivion on the ideas that the Manifesto brought up.
The final assignment I did today, and for the week, was the rewritten M3GAN film review. I also used Dr. Oblivion to help me with this, who told me that he didn’t think I missed anything important.
One thing that Dr. Oblivion said as I was rewriting my review was that films and media typically tell the worst-case scenario of things, which I hadn’t thought of. Just because AI if overwhelmingly evil in films, doesn’t mean that it will be in reality. The idea is dramatized so that it can create tension and interest, because a normal film with normal AI that isn’t evil would be “boring.”
But that makes me wonder, would it? It’s just another story. Why can’t we tell that story? What’s stopping us from having boring AI seen that doesn’t drastically change the world?
Maybe I should explore more AI in films to see what other kinds of stories they tell.
This is how my week has gone. Sorry to ramble, I’m a talker and love talking.
My participation with commenting on other’s has been poor this week, mostly because I keep forgetting. Next week I plan to comment on a few things every day, see what everyone is up to.
Actually, seeing the few posts that I did comment on was nice. It’s actually really cool seeing how other people interpret the same prompt or idea in a completely different manner than I did. It makes me remember that I’m not the only person in this world and that my thoughts and ideas are not universal. I actually think I want to go through everyone’s Course Characters and see what people have come up with!!
So this week was stressful . . . very stressful, a lot to do, not only here but in all my other classes. With that, next week I will not leave everything until last minute AND I MEAN IT!!! (You can yell at me in the comments if I end up leaving everything until the last minute again . . .) I also want to interact more with others, see these people, see their works, see their stories. I want to connect with the people here, or at least just get a glimpse of what they’re up to.
To conclude, next week . . . will be the one . . . please . . .
I’ve come back to my review of the movie M3GAN with my scary, yet kinda cool new AI acquaintance, Dr. Oblivion here to help me revise it. I started off by asking him to describe it, seeing if maybe he had picked up on something already that I hadn’t. Here’s what he said:
Of course, he’s passive aggressive and sarcastic and blunt about it.
From a general description, it didn’t seem like I missed anything. So, instead, I fed him what I originally said about the movie:
“The storyline revolves around a child who’s parents get killed in a car crash. She ends up going to live with her aunt, her mother’s sister, who works as a toy manufacturer. The aunt worked with a lot of different types of AI toys for kids, but her big project was M3GAN, a humanoid robot prototype that would work with the child and be more than a toy, but a friend. It is as terrifiying as a thought as it sounds, and M3GAN was fine and worked well for a while. Her primary function was to protect the child, but she was built to learn through situations and upgrade over time, which became the problem. She learned too much, to the point that she would stop at nothing, would even kill to protect the child. She upgraded herself to remove the aunt’s controls over her and began attacking her when she thought the parent had upset the child, and when the child fought back to protect her aunt, M3GAN fought the child. Eventually, she gets shut down by a screwdriver to her ‘brain,’ and she doesn’t get put on the market.“
I asked Dr. Oblivion to tell me if I missed anything important. Here’s how he replied:
He really hyped me up! Thanks Dr. Oblivion (I’m still side-eyeing you)!
Because he told me I didn’t miss anything, I then fed him my personal thoughts on AI and the movie M3GAN:
“The movie addressed a lot of my fears with AI: that it will become uncontrollable. If AI is supposed to learn to solve every problem, what happens when they learn too much? It makes me uncomfortable and anxious and I kind of wished I chose a different movie, one that would have shown AI in a more promising light, because now I just feel biased against AI. I felt uncomfortable with the whole AI thing in the movie even during the scenes where M3GAN was ‘good.’ It just felt really uncomforting to see that humans could create something so humanoid, yet so unhuman at the same time. Mehhh the thought of it makes me feel weird still.”
Here’s how he replied:
I appreciate that Mr. AI himself told me that it’s natural to feel concerned about AI. It made me feel a lot better, actually. It comes back to this idea of taking AI and technology with a grain of salt. We see these terrifying versions of AI dramatized to make tension in media and films, so it makes perfect sense why I’m so uncomfortable with it, but that’s also the problem. I need to be able to understand that these movies are built with the purpose of having extreme or worst-case scenarios, and that the world doesn’t always go straight to the worst-case scenario, like M3GAN depicts.
I think I’m actually growing to appreciate Dr. Oblivion. He made me feel a lot better about my thoughts today instead of making me feel like I’m stupid for being concerned about AI.
Today, I read the Techno-Optimist Manifesto and it really took me by surprise. It entirely contrasted my views on AI, and completely contrasted the film I watched last week about AI. It made me think a little bit.
The Manifesto is optimistic of AI. It implies using technology to build our near-utopia future. It also explains how we have always used technology to advance, as well as advanced technology, and that this is no difference.
My own personal thought is that I’m still scared of AI. I’m looking at it through the corner of my eye, giving it a little bit of a stink eye. I feel like the Manifesto didn’t touch on the environmental costs of this kind of technology. How are we supposed to save our world using technology that kills our world? Poor people will be put in place to gather the materials to create the technology, and they won’t even get access to the technology. The Manifesto was just too good to be true. It didn’t feel universal. Someone is going to suffer through the technology.
I reflected my concern about the environment to Dr. Oblivion and this is how he responded:
I don’t like this guy.
He seems sarcastic!! I’m asking real questions, not complaining!
I decided to ask a different question, asking about Dr. Oblivion’s thoughts on the ethical concerns with the technology, and here’s how he replied:
I’m glad he agreed with me on this and also felt the concern, asking the the Manifesto addresses these concerns and yearns for fairness in the retrieval of the materials. However, I’m still not convinced that it would work. I’m not sure if these thoughts would even change anything, and that’s what upsets me. It’s not at all fair, it’s inhumane.
Finally, I asked Dr. Oblivion’s thoughts on the Manifesto itself, without asking anything else, and this was his response:
(Dr. Oblivion saying “asterisk sigh asterisk” is very funny to me.)
I like how he is interested in it but cautious. He said to take it with a grain of salt, be cautious of it, and take note of “with great power comes great responsibility.” Maybe me and Dr. Oblivion will be getting along then.
It’s time for you all to meet my course character, Sol. I’ve sketched a little picture of them, but take it with a grain of salt, because Sol can take on any form imaginable.
Sol is a depiction of the sun and reveals themself as an artist, choosing to tell the stories of every single thing in life, no matter how big, or how small, through the sky. Sol, being the sun, is 4.6 billion years old, and doesn’t have a place of origin outside of space. They are a keeper of memories and a watcher of life, and translate that life into the painting of the sky, through a cascade of yellows, oranges, blues, pinks, etc.
Sol is described to be able to take on any form. Their most common humanoid form is a tall feminine form with dark skin and freckles scattering their round, yet high cheeks. Hair is in the shape of an afro, thick and furrowed in a circular shape around their head, dark with blond highlights, with a few coiled bangs falling over their face. They have large eyes and long eyelashes. They wear a yellow and orange flowy dress with a sun pattern in the torso. All of this can be seen roughly in the sketch, but every detail can change with the appearance Sol takes on.
Despite the fact that Sol’s depicted image in feminine, it’s important to keep in mind that Sol is genderless. Sometimes their humanoid figure can be masculine, other times feminine, sometimes not even a human at all. Everything is situational to Sol. Because of this, it’s important to refer to Sol using they/them pronouns.
Sol does not have a favorite food (although something is telling me they would love Italian food) and Sol does not have a favorite drink (although they would definitely love pina coladas). Sol also does not have a favorite book or movie. The reason for this is because each of these tell stories, and they feel it wouldn’t be fair to choose favorites. They feel as if it would create an unfair bias that they should not have while retelling their stories through the painting of the sky.
Sol paints the sky with a paintbrush typically, but sometimes will choose to fingerpaint or use different forms of tools. Sol intends on allowing the painting to tell multiple stories all over the world, all over the galaxy. Sometimes these stories will blur together with one another, sometimes they will not. Sometimes, the stories will shed light onto the ground below, impacting the lives of others. Sometimes they will not.
Sol’s motto is “tell everyone’s story, no matter how big, or how small.” They live by this motto and will continue to live by this motto forever.
Sol is very excited to hear the stories of everyone here and be able to tell new stories or paint the stories they hear!
For my final prompt in the Assignment Bank, I chose to make a charity ad. The prompt was, “Create an ad to inform people about a charity and encourage them to donate. It can be a real charity or you can make one up!” Here is my ad.
I chose something that is very important to me right now: ending the genocide of Palestinians. I made this in Canva with the intention of spreading awareness. The watermelon represents the Palestine flag.
I’m not going to apologize for bringing politics into this when 26,083 Palestinians (majority children and women) have been murdered for their existence. Gaza has lost access to phone service and Internet. People’s stories can’t be told, people can’t connect to their families.
I don’t think it matters what side you’re on, if you have the opportunity to donate a few dollars for eSims for those in Gaza to connect with their family and allow journalists to continue to inform the world of what’s going on, please donate.
There is always more we can do. I’m attaching more links to send help:
eSims for Gaza – purchase eSims for Gazans without Internet
GoFundMe – sends money to CareForGaza, which helps displaced Gazan families
Pious Projects – help provide hygine kits for women in Gaza
Click to Help – one daily click helps a donation be sent to Palestine
There’s so much more than what I’ve listed, so I encourage you to go out and find different ways to help.
I used Canva again (it’s my go to for easy graphic design things) and I wanted to kind of play around with the tools I hadn’t explored in it. Now that I’m looking at it, I kinda wish I made the books black and white, or the text to follow the books, but I didn’t want to spend too long on it.
There’s no big story here, I was just recreating the original poster with my own interpretation. I chose a graphic that had known books on it so that it could click with someone! But yeah!
