So, not everyone knows what this mysterious secret project that I've been blabbering on about is. I can finally tell everyone what it is and show you all the finished product!
Beginning In May of this year, when the deviantART Staff Appreciation Week (#StaffAppreciation) was still in its baby phase, we were deliberating on how to get the staff to feel truly appreciated and how to give them something that would last. A lot of this discussion took place in the back room of #StaffAppreciation. I believe that some people passed around the idea of printing out a card and mailing it to everyone to get it signed around the world. If I'm correct, that idea came from =ebonypen.
We eventually decided on this.
Middle I contacted several graphic designers whose artwork I love to see if they'd be willing to volunteer some of their time to us to create a background that we could use for our project. Eventually, *Reanimagic (whose work is freakin' awesome) pointed me to `pica-ae. She graciously volunteered to do this for us, and the background you see is from her!
I then split this up into even vertical and horizontal rows, and labeled each spot according to what slice number it was in Photoshop. After slicing it up and uploading it to my Dropbox, I started a Google Spreadsheet that would allow people to sign their name next to the number they wanted. This process continued until about two weeks ago.
End After getting everyone to turn in their portion of the product and aligned them with the original, I saved this and sent it to Staples to be professionally printed and laminated, and then I bought a frame and wrapped it up with some newspaper (classy ) and taunted $Ayame-Kenoshi with what's inside.
Today, at the Dr. Pepper Mural devMEET that we all attended, I gave the final product over to $Ayame-Kenoshi, $Heidi, and $Dan14Lev. They opened it, and I was so excited by their reaction! I hope that ALL of the staff feel appreciated and I hope they ALL enjoy this.
What this project has proved is our dedicated and skillful collaboration as a community. Regardless of whether or not you live in America, Portugal, Russia, or Brazil, we all came together to get this finished.
It's also a testament to deviantART!
Here is everyone who has participated. The names correspond with the actual project.