When it comes to visual design I’m basically a finger-painting toddler. Nothing demonstrates that more than contemplating a new cover photo.
— Jason A. Rust (@jasonarust) April 28, 2014
In case you’re wondering, the catalyzing event for the tweet above was finding out late last week that my twitter profile had been upgraded to the “new design”. As expected, a lot of people are kvetching because said new design may or may not look an awful lot like other things, and/or is just basically terrible in a Disney villain kind of way.
In other words, the internet is gonna keep on being the internet. By which I mean that in a digital realm where the only constant is change, you have to perversely admire the medium’s general stance that Changes Must Always Be Shouted Down As A Harbinger of The End Of All Things
For me, though, the change to twitter isn’t really all that all awful. Then again, when it comes to visual design elements, I turn out to be pretty competent at appreciating and/or evaluating words. Also, if twitter hadn’t told me my profile had changed, I likely wouldn’t have noticed for months, if ever.
But they did tell me, and now the whole cover photo thing is all different and I feel like I need to change mine and make it uber cool and take advantage of the new design somehow. That said, though, as stated above, when it comes to pretty visual things, I’m pretty good at spelling. And especially with regard to social media, few things make me feel more than inadequate wanting to come up with a cover design that somehow encapsulates me in a banner photo and being able to concoct nothing but the exactly opposite. Case in point, my blog header is currently a bar of bluish-greyish which basically says about me, “Hey, here’s a some guy with a blog made of English words”.
So now, with my particular limitations in mind, I’m trying to decide how I can make a stick figure-based cover image for Puddintopia, Facebook, and twitter, whatever else adopts banner covers that says, “Here’s a clever guy that makes amusing posts sometimes and also writes imaginative novels.”
So far, my only idea is a stick figure dragon—that could be a thing, right? Maybe?—with a dialog balloon and the word “LOL”.
Which brings me to the point of today’s post: thanks, twitter, for joining the ranks of all the other social media outlets hell-bent on making remember, yet again, what it felt like to be that kid in Kindergarten who couldn’t color inside the lines.
I hope you’re proud of yourself.
Pud’n
Puddintopia 
🙂
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