DFN Happy Hour No. 1: Day of the Week Sign

Coming up Friday at 5:30 pm PDT members Barb Noren (BarbMakesThings), Tod Kurt (todbot) and I (Carlyn Maw, carlynorama) will be streaming our conversation about the Day of The Week Signs we made on Twitch.

https://www.twitch.tv/deepfriedneurons

It’s possible that one or two of you saw the post last week about relaxing activities, which was missing a certain… something. For the follow up, Barb Noren’s channel Barb’s Makes Things seemed like the perfect place to go looking for a soothing creative activity. While looking at the awesome selection of videos to choose from, I thought… “You know, I could actually call her.” One google drive doc and a Tod walking through the kitchen later and we end up with The Deep Fried Neurons Happy Hour.

Every week we’ll be doing our own projects based on a theme inspired by how we’re dealing with the quarantine/physical distancing. Starting next week we’d like to invite anyone who wants to to to join the show and tell. You can do this weeks project (a day of the week calendar) or the one we’ll announce on Friday. Details about who/how to get in touch to sign up to participate in the show and tell but the discussion list will be a good place to start. Put [DFN] in the subject line, if you remember.

What kind of projects? Well this week’s theme was “What day of the week is it?” and here is how the three of us interpreted it:

Tod: Week Wheel

Tod’s been doing a lot of 3D printing of PPE lately. Keeping with that theme, files and info for Tod’s Day of Week Wheel Magnet available on Thing-a-verse.

Barb: Colorful Signs

Within minutes, Barb immediately got out the pens and started drawing. These signs have been a big hit with her colleagues when they are up in the background of her video calls. She works on them in meetings so they’ve been a nice way to keep her hands busy while still thinking and paying attention.

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Carlyn: Playing with Python

Barb’s videos Leave It Better sign, Hand Lettering Colors and Conductive Ink Poetry got me thinking about different ways to make signs around the house. To be honest, I personally probably need to put a “Leave It Better” sign over the kitchen sink. The graph paper typography based “Hand Lettering Colors” seemed the most accessible of the three. But I wanted to make my own graph paper. Because of course I did.

I’m a bit rusty on my Python skills, so this was my chance to get back in the groove. So the first things I did was write a Command-line Utility to return the day of the week in the terminal.

Moving on to graph paper I pulled some examples from previous projects and made some graph paper scripts. I wanted dot-graph paper.

Then I did the hand lettering for the sign, leaving room for updatable post-it notes.

By coincidence, Tod’s Day of the Week wheel fits perfectly. So I stole it.

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