Lesson Learned:
Meteors have a PR Problem

An Article On My First Heartbreak with Design

The year was 2005 and an opportunity of a lifetime occurred at school.

When you transfer schools, being the “new kid” can be hard. New class. New friends. It’s tough to put yourself out there.

Thankfully, our class was holding an art competition.

We were embarking on a NASA field trip later that month and the faculty wanted buttons designed for the students to wear and to keep. This was back when Pluto was still a planet & teachers still used laminated buttons makers.

The pitch was simple in my mind: draw something space-related, win over the class, become the it girl.

A first impression is coming for you whether you’re ready for it or not when you’re the new kid. And I saw a chance to create my own path and prove that the quiet girl in the back of the class had a secret weapon, ARTISTIC TALENT.

So, I decided to tempt fate with a pack of gel pens and tried to win the vote.

A little over-confident in my artistic abilities, I went all in. What I lacked in compositional awareness I fully made up for in glittery ink.

To no surprise of my own, the class loved it. The glitter won them over completely.

Unfortunately…

And abruptly…

The entry was also disqualified for violent imagery.

I know. I KNOW.

From cheating? No. Jealousy? Not even.

An out-of-touch faculty complained it contained “violent” imagery. From what you ask? Well, from the meteor with a projectile straight towards planet Earth. Imminent doom in 3…2…1….

I’m going to be honest, the possibility of a utopian vision of space exploration doubling as an extinction-level event was, at the time, completely outside my creative framework.

It had not occurred to me. Not even briefly. That my artistic expression could loosely resemble an apocalyptic nightmare.

It was catastrophic at the time, but now genuinely hilarious in hindsight.

I became known as as the girl who used gel pens (dream come true?), but I can’t help but wonder what on earth I was thinking. 🌎