CRyder Design

For my last project in my Design Research and Methods class, we were assigned to create a humorous ransom note. We had to toy around with who would be sending the note, and who it would be directed toward before we even thought about taking a step into deciding what exactly the note would say. But as soon as Professor Hastings mentioned what we were doing, I knew I wanted to do something that involved the life of a broke college student, specifically a graphic design student, because our daily struggles are something I think we can all laugh about. Although I jumped the gun on directions, I knew that humor was the core of this project. 

In the article “When Great Art Makes You LOL” authors Alicia Eler and Alex Huntsberger state, “Can art be funny? Yes, of course – but it doesn’t have to be, whereas comedy has to be funny or else it fails… But art? It can be whatever it wants to be, as long as it’s full of thoughts, emotions, humanity, concepts, etc.” In the case of this project, art is both full of creativity and humor. It was great to be able to dive into the funny side of this ransom note as well as the creative side, and see what approach others took as well.

I chose to do the phrase, “Pay for my Adobe suite or I’m not coming back – Broke College Kid.” I chose this because something all of the Graphic and Interactive Design students complain about is the price of the Adobe creative suite, and all college students can relate to feeling broke, that’s a given. But most of all I want to make those who looked at my note laugh at the everyday struggle of this graphic design student. Hopefully, you laughed too!