Silly Sunday Project

Photo credit: solecism at Flickr

I recently went through the photos of a writing friend on Facebook and he had a picture with a caption written on it. This was part of a game where one picks a random photo to represent their fictitious album cover and adds fictitious band name and also a fictitious name for said album. I played along and the photo to the right--click to enlarge--was my album cover, my band name was Light & Heavy and the album was called "to be conscious of none". This can of course lead to elements that work perfectly with one another or better yet, lead to a 'WTF' moment. Below are the instructions to create your own album cover. I look forward to seeing the results posted at your blogs...

1. Go to Wikipedia and hit "Random article" (top left margin). The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.


2. Go to quotationspage.com and hit "Random Quotes" (left margin). The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page will be the title of your album.

3. Go to Flickr and click on “Explore" (bottom centre) then click "Interesting photos from the last seven days” (right margin). The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. If that one can not be saved, move to the next one in sequence. Note: you MAY want to give a photo credit to the Flickr person you pilfered the shot from...

4. Use Photoshop or something similar (picnik.com is a free online photo editor) to put it all together.

5. Post the photo with these instructions at your blog.

OK, that was a bit of fun. It only took about 30 minutes. A lot of the time was spent altering the colour of the photo and experimenting with the text fonts and it's location on the woman's tummy album cover. And then I thought to myself..."Self, why not make this applicable to writers and what THEY do. So here is the new game...you are a struggling writer (I know, what a stretch) and have penned a seedy tale with little artistic merit to make a fast buck (if you are so lucky to be paid that much). You don't want to sully the reputation and good name you have worked so hard to build up in the social networks. Let's work on a random book cover, a name for your novel and a quote by Charlie Sheen to endorse your novel...

1. Go to Wikipedia and hit "Random article" (top left margin). The third random Wikipedia article you hit is the name of your seedy novel.

2. Go to the Prank Call Name Generator for your fictitious writer's name. Note: don't be intimidated by having to type your name. Use the name of a writing friend or someone you dislike if you choose.


3. Go to the Charlie Sheen quote generator for an endorsement for the cover of your seedy novel. Why Charlie? Well, in a seedy way he's sort of popular right now (if you discount the flopping on stage in Detroit last night).
4. Go to Flickr and click on “Explore" (bottom centre) then click "Interesting photos from the last seven days” (right margin). The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. If that one can not be saved, move to the next one in sequence. Note: you MAY want to give a photo credit to the Flickr person you pilfered the shot from...

5. Use Photoshop or something similar (picnik.com is a free online photo editor) to put it all together.
6. Post the photo with these instructions at your blog.

Now that I've got this typed out, I'll give my seedy novel cover a whirl...

Photo credit: jkoci at Flickr