Add another dimension to your message by meshing a new medium with your current style.
“The medium is the message,” said philosopher Marshall McLuhan once upon a time. (He also predicted the invention of the web 30 years before it happened, so he was clearly on to something.) This week, integrate a second medium into your post to add more depth to what you usually publish.
A few weeks ago, we featured Jenny Maloney’s delightful site, Place for the Stolen, as an editors’ selection on Discover. Jenny’s daily short stories are a little wry, a little dark, a little off-kilter, and a lot of fun.
But it’s not just the words that give her stories life and shape, it’s their design. She publishes every post as an image, using fonts, colors, alignment, and line lengths to create a graphic that gives each story unique visual interest and dimension:
Her design choices might reinforce the mood of a story, add lightness to a grim tale, or create a sharp juxtaposition between story and visual to leave us unnerved. Each day, I look forward to reading her latest work and seeing how she’s chosen to present it.
This week, publish a post containing the kind of work you’d normally publish — but mix it with a second type of media, either digital or analog:
- A photo (or several!).
- An illustration.
- An embedded video, tweet, map, or Instagram photo.
- A graphic, like the ones Jenny creates.
- Clippings from print books or magazines.
- An animated GIF (yes, you can make your own).
- Words (if you normally publish photos or art).
If you’re interested in exploring graphics like Jenny’s, there are great, free websites like Canva that will help you create one — we’ve even got a tutorial — while the free tools at PicMonkey are our favorites for combining text and photos. This tutorial on creating visuals that aren’t photos is also a great starting place.
The goal here is to integrate whatever added medium you choose. Don’t just add a photo to your poem, layer the words over it. Don’t just embed a tweet mid-post, use a series of tweets to tell your actual story. Use the second medium to help communicate meaning, not simply as a fun added visual.
Is this one a little tough? We hope so! Exploring new territory and pushing up against boundaries spark creativity, so we’re excited to see what happens here.
I like the idea of telling a story through tweets! Or maybe a poem? I found a web app a while ago called WriteRack that breaks up text into tweet-sized bites. Might finally give it a try for this challenge 🙂
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How does that app work exactly Lisa?
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After logging in, you type or paste your words into the text box, and WriteRack automatically breaks up the text into tweets marked “1/”, “2/”, “3/”…and so on. That’s as far as I have gotten. I assume when you are ready you hit “Post” and off they go one by one to your twitter account 🙂
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I like the idea of postcard stories- might try it!
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My website’s blog is all about radio imaging.
Can I please have some advice on how to incorprate Please parten spelling mistakes. Radio imaging into this challenge?
I appreciate the hellp and hope to find myself on descover soon!
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You could try to tell a story through the images themselves, or layer text over images. You could create a collage that mixes radio images, other images, and text, and upload a photo of that, or you could turn some images into a GIF. It’s up to you, and what you want to communicate!
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Buddha’s relics:
https://insellos.wordpress.com/2016/10/19/discover-challenge-mixed-media/
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This looks very cool- shame i can’t understand it 😦
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“If you chase after sayings and you lose yourself in words, you are not better off than the man whose sword fell into the water and he marked the spot on the railing.”
“A much easier and shorter way as the effort to become a Buddha is simply to be a Buddha.”
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I’d been experimenting with gallery styles for my autumn post before i saw this. https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/27119355/posts/1192074201 I’ve used photos to illustrate my poem / poetry to illustrate my poems but feel i could do more in future. I like the idea of writing over photos.
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I think it’s Amazing how creative people can get when they tap into that zone and just allow it flow! For me it’s a Stress reliever 😜
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This is my professional blog so I usually write more of an article style but a recent WPC caught my eye and so I deviated from the norm on this blog and plunged into the photo challenge. I think it worked well.
https://earlychildhoodedu-play-tion.org/2016/10/07/photo-challenge-h2o/
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Please take a look at my blog. That was a hard, but profitable task. Thank you!
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Good job with Canva! If you want to include the actual PDF in your blog post, your best bet would be to save it as an image, and then upload it — Canva should allow you to save it as an image file. (You want a file name that ends in .gif, .jpg, or .png.)
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Love Canva and the Adobe apps for custom images http://www.wellsbaum.com/2016/10/12/little-reward-conformity/
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I don’t know how to create a pingback so I’ll just leave a link of my entry here 🙂
https://callmeriina.wordpress.com/2016/10/19/mi-amor-%F0%9F%92%96%F0%9F%92%8B%F0%9F%92%91/
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I try to attach a custom image to every post.
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Example http://www.wellsbaum.com/2016/10/12/little-reward-conformity/
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Such a great Challenge for this week Michelle; many thanks: http://wp.me/p3gSod-4cg
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Michelle,
I’m not a photo blogger.
If you check out my site you’ll see what my blog is about.
I might tell a story that has to do with how I got into radio imaging hopefully comments won’t be closed so I can send it to you when it’s all done!
BTW I’m not good with pingbacks eather.
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Even when comments eventually close, pingbacks will still work. To create a pingback, include a link to this post in your post — a pingback is automatically created when you publish a post that links to another post. So:
1. You write a post.
2. You include a link to https://wordpress.com/dailypost/discover-challenges/mixing-media/.
3. You publish your post.
4. WordPress.com automatically creates the pingback, and your post gets added to the grid below.
Have fun!
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I had my first go at making quote images and including them in a blog post here: https://craftingmylifeblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/20/how-to-be-happy-people-hate-jealousy-self-improvement/.
Any design feedback (actually *any* feedback) welcome!
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Wow!! What a cool idea!!
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I mix it up, I don’t get great results, but sometimes you just have to mix it up anyway: http://wp.me/p2owKx-Mc
Cheers!
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http://thoughtswrittenonpiece.wordpress.com
Hey this is my first attempt to express my feelings and I would really like to get your feedbacks which will help me to improve please do visit here. Thank you
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