Wow. The design assignment opportunity this week at Camp Magic MacGuffin has offered a gazillion ideas — I have a major list I could chip away at — and making the time to get to get to them has been a fun challenge. The Postcards from Magical Places Design Assigment 363 was a blast!
I’ve had this shot of the camp centre for a while now, and liked the idea of riffing on the ds106 “Make Some Art!” battle-cry by substituting the word “Craft” — both as a nod to the creativity evoked by Minecraft, and also the care that the word “craft” seems to embody. So as an invitation to non-campers who might receive the postcard from CMM, that seemed to be a good caption for the card.
“Postcard from Camp Magic MacGuffin (Front)” by aforgrave, on Flickr
Having spent all that time returning transparency (pixel by pixel) to the two block images so that I could use them to “build a tree” for the Monkey Social invitation, I repurposed them to create the two main words in the postcard title. The 3D nature of the lettering suits the Minecraft theme. While I’m not as happy with the text for “some” as I might be, in some ways it is reminiscent of some post card text I’ve seen that really doesn’t mesh with the image beneath. So on that note, it’s staying. All the bits on the front were assembled in Fireworks in a .PNG, and then flattened to .JPG to post to the web.
“Postcard from Camp Magic Maguffin (Back)” by aforgrave, on Flickr
I had a lot of fun working on the back of the card, which had me editing the CMM logo in Photoshop to remove the colours to produce the postmark outline, creating the border of the stamp, and editing the scanned handwriting (again, more removing pixels to get a nice transparency over the existing postcard back). It seems like every time I need to make something transparent, I need to google how to do it. There must be better ways.
The stamp was especially fun to do. I’m going to do a series of stamps — I have a good number of screen captures of CMM in Minecraft, and a stamp series seems like a nice way to collect them. Given the designation bestowed to the “camp pet” in the week four assignment video, I figured it was best to start the series with that image. Gotta keep him happy.
“CMM Stamp#1 ‘Nobody Bava Head’ “by aforgrave, on Flickr
Were there more space on the postcard, it would be nice for a weekly letter home. As it was, so much has happened this past week, there really isn’t room to even begin.
This is simply magnificant! I love the design of the front and the stamp and the thoroughness of the back. Yes, I know that’s a badly-formed sentence, but I’m overcome with emotion by this postcard!!
As a design challenge, this one is a goodie. Quite a few different pieces go together from start to finish to make a simple post-card. And I’m going to run with the Commemorative Stamp collection. That will be fun!
In the parlance of our times, this stuff is filthy sick.
I am totally in love with the card and stamp. The lettering is boss. I think “some” works, but maybe a different fill color sampled from the lava would help it pop?
I am also blown away by all the creativity poured into the server like lava from the mouth of a bava. Nicely done, Andrew & #ds106. I want a series of the cards and stamps, please!
All the best,
C
I think the stamps will be fun. I can see them laid up like a full sheet, ready to be perforated and stuck on a letter. Although, I will admit that I’ve only sent ONE stamped item so far in 2012. Somehow there doesn’t seem to be as much call for stamps anymore these days.
Oh well, virtual stamps can still be fun.
Man, your minecraft art is amazing. I particularly love the stamp 😉
Yes. I had fun with the stamp — an inspiration to make more, for sure! Nothing like inspiration, Jim!
This is off the hook. I love it. And to anyone browsing, definitely worth getting on the ds106 minecraft server to see some of the amazing art therein.
My sons and I visited The Lego Store over the weekend. They love Lego. I think it’s been commonly accepted for years that Lego has been a wonderfully engaging medium to draw out creativity and allow for the making of all kinds of things. I’m finding that Minecraft is a lot like Lego. Yes, it’s blocks, but it also promotes collaborative play, sharing, design and reworking, riffing off of (not ripping off) others’ work. The endless supply of blocks in creative mode lets you build as many dream houses as you like! What adult (or kid) wouldn’t go for that? And the challenge of working with limited or hard-to-find resources of Survival Mode stimulates a whole different nature of play.
As to the creation of art, I’m astounded by what has exploded around the Minecraft incarnation of Camp Magic MacGuffin. It’s wonderful to see the space evolve over time, with new things popping up every day. It’s becoming a Virtual Artists Co-Op.
Andy, your parents called and they could not be more proud, they are going to frame the postcard to put on the living room hall and have xeroxed it to fax to the rest of your relatives.
This takes the level of postcard design to a whole new level- your attention to detail (the camp blurb, the postmark) all make this a model of how to do the assignment. If you are counting stars, we can double the point value in the secret interface.
Thanks, Alan! I recall hearing something about bringing your A-game to the assignments, so I’m working on that! As I indicated above, the Design week has left me with a list of ideas yet to implement — at least two are “almost done” and just need to get finished.
And, this week we’re on to audio, so I’m thinking about the #ds106radio bumper as I type this…