Blackberries, iPads, iPhones, raspberries and iPickles are everywhere. Most places I look
there's someone flicking the air across the screen of their miniaturised computer with
a blank, zombified look on their face.
When was the last time you saw anyone using a pen and paper? Even schools - the place I learnt to write - are implimenting laptops for kids to work on nowadays. I understand completely that these things might be considered "safer" for storing work on, or "smarter" since you can store a lot of info in one place and use lots of different programs and applications, but using an argument about having to keep "up to date" with today's technology is rubbish. If notebooks were outdated, would they still exist?
So I have a proposition for you: go get a notebook. A pretty, hardback journal, with roses and polka dots all over it, with a wonderful, unbroken spine and crisp new pages. It's a wonderful feeling. Take that lovely notebook, open it up (sniff the pages) and write something - anything; a secret, a joke, a stressful issue - and maybe do it again and again. Perhaps write something you might tweet instead. Treat it like your phone, perhaps - but, wait! It isn't your phone, is it? It's paper; sweet, blank, beautiful paper. You could tear that piece out in front of you right now, fold it into some clever origami buffalo or something. You could glue it back in on another page. You could grab some fun felt tip pens and doodle all over another page. You could get stickers and stick them all over the front, washi tape and embossing powders - anything!
But what else could it take? A hole drilled through it? It would function just fine afterwards, afterall. Half-drop it in a tin of paint? Drop it in the sink? Let your 2 year old nephew near it? Even let your dog chew it up a little bit. But what else could it take? What else, what more could it take that an iPhone can't?
Creative destruction is something that goes out of the window as you grow up. As a youngster, you may well have played in mud, coloured in your dolls' hair, or attempted to make a toy fly by tying a back to its arms and throwing it out of the window. But as we get older, and we get money, and shiny new technology is placed in front of us, we start to value our possessions - perhaps a little too much in some cases. If you once said "I couldn't live without my iPod" then I mean you - and look after them more than we ever would before.
This is what I, Kaitlyn and Shane want to encourage you out of with this project. And as a little incentive, there are also prizes to be won for the most creative finished piece.
You get yourself a nice new notebook or journal (
or maybe make it yourself), consider using it for a while first, fill it up with things that are important to you, either in a good way or a bad way, but of some significance - make the book important to you.
Once you've done that, and it could have just been one secret or worry on each page, start to consider the versatility of the book and its pages, and destroy it creatively. This does not mean set it on fire or tear it to pieces - it doesn't even have to be "destroyed" in a negative way. You can rip pages out and stick them in elsewhere, you could add pages to them, you can saw it in half.
There is only one catch: it must still be readable. Its contents must still be reachable and readable. You can have painted over them, but as long as the words are still visable, it's fine. You can add some kind of locking mechanism to the book, but as long as it opens, it's fine.
• This competition will run for two months. Completed entries will be accepted by email (the button at the bottom of the page), there's no need to email me to let me know you plan to take part ^^
• Entries should consist of pictures of several "destroyed" pages, and the finished book - a minimum of 5 pictures, but 7 to 10 would be excellent. Some pictures could be the process of "destroying" some pages, while others could be pages once they've been altered.
• Please include your name, email address, and a single webpage you wish to be associated with (your blog, your shop, your facebook, etc)
• Creativity is key. Throw away all the boundaries, stop thinking and just do. Maybe use some of the materials of your trade, whatever that would be. Be original, but please be sensible.
• None of the hosts or prize contributors will be held responsible if you do something silly and get yourself hurt. I did tell you to be sensible.
• The winner will be voted for by the hosts and prize contributors.
• Prizes, including participational, will be given out once the winner has
been announced. All entries must be sent by email, therefore participational
prizes will be sent out quickly the same day as the winner is announced. Please
note, that some prizes - physical or digital - may take longer to be received
than others, depending on the location of the donater. I, for one, am in
England, Kaitlyn is in Canada, and Shane is in the US.
*Name TBC; Opens October 1st