You already know that I never miss a chance for flexing my creative muscles. After watching a funny GIF clip on the Reddit Popular thread, I clicked on the SubReddit ‘r/WinStupidPrizes.’ It is dedicated to GIFs and videos of people playing stupid games and winning stupid prizes. The pinned moderator post on the homepage is about a banner contest for r/WinStupidPrizes. Even after five days of contest announcement, no one has submitted anything!
Earliest Bird and (Early) Worms!
The contest rule says that “Mods will choose finalists, and the community will vote on their favorites from there!” I won’t participate in any contest with popular voting selection method because the winner is crowned not on merit; but by the number of friends a contestant can influence to vote for them. This might be one of the reasons why other creative people too are not taking the plunge here.
But I wanted to trigger an avalanche of participation by submitting a ‘not-so-good’ entry. People might look at my submission and go “Oh, I can definitely do better!” So I conjured up a banner, created a video and uploaded them in the thread as my submission.
Will this early bird get any worms (credit on subreddit sidebar, exclusive user-flair and free 3 months of Reddit Premium)? Let’s see, I’m not an influencer though!
The Brain Drain
Here is the video I created to feature my banner for r/WinStupidPrizes Homepage.
The graphic I created is showing an unplugged/powered OFF brain wearing a hat, spectacles and carrying a (stupid) trophy, leaving with a goodbye. It appears that this brain is about to fall into a (rabbit) hole of more stupid games!
The banner file was created in two dimensions, one for mobile and one for web. An organic, maze like pattern is used as the background.
After referring the Reddit Help article on banners, I feel that the dimensions of these files may not work exactly as intended. But I’m just following the competition rules on the specific parameters for now. If I win, I can always update the banner dimensions for the best experience of r/WinStupidPrizes across multiple devices.
Determined not to spend much time on this banner design, I went to the popular free vector website FreePik.com and searched an image with the keyword “stupidity.”
“I’m done!”
Voila! One of the first results itself is an image of a brain wearing a hat, spectacles and a suitcase, saying goodbye!
Perfect! Let me work on top of this…
- Replace the suitcase with a trophy similar to the SubReddit icon. This gives the context of a brain, ‘retiring hurt’ from a stupid game with a prize.
- Add a tail-like power cable to the brain that appears to be unplugged. Let’s just establish that the brain is on a power down mode.
- A portal-like (rabbit) hole appearing on the floor. The brain is about to step into the hole, and this might reveal more stupid games and prizes to win. This element can be further developed as an animated GIF.
- Color correction of the image composition.
- A darker background for the banner with organic, maze-like pattern. If this image is tiled, on a casual look, the edges appear to be seamless.
My Submission to r/WinStupidPrizes
The r/WinStupidPrizes banner design contest is accepting responses till 01-Dec-2022. I have posted my banner design there. Let’s see how many people take a cue from my submission and come up with more and better banner options.
Wish me luck!
Free resources used in this post
- Brain in hat and glasses saying bye with suitcase flat vector illustration: FreePik
- Realistic of golden championship trophy, cup: FreePik
- Broken electrical cable set: FreePik
- Abstract organic lines background: FreePik
- Laptop screen mockup psd on a desk retro home office zone: FreePik
- Laptop mockup on a wooden table: FreePik
- Music — ‘Tamil Comedy Music’ by KamaleshSiddu: Pixabay
