Welcome back to the latest blog in the Summer of Bitcoin series. Here, I present Chapter 2.
For those who are not acquainted with me, I am Sushant, a final-year undergraduate from IIT Kanpur. I create videos, write newsletters, work as a designer, loves machine learning and am pursuing a B.Tech in chemical engineering.
In the previous blog, I discussed how I got selected for the Summer of Bitcoin program and the selection process. In this blog, I will talk about the kickoff call and subsequent events.
A few days after receiving the congratulatory email from the SoB team, Haley (my mentor, if you recall) asked me to download an app called Signal. She wanted to create a group so that the four of us could communicate easily throughout the internship.
Wait, four of us? Let me count again: Haley, mystery mentor, and me. That makes three people. So why did Haley mention four of us? Is there another mentor or another intern? This is getting confusing.
To clarify, I did the simplest thing: I asked Haley if there was another intern in the same organisation, and she confirmed that there was, named Abhijay Jain.
We had our first kickoff call on May 20, 2024. During this call, the four of us brainstormed ideas on how to proceed with our (mine and Abhijay's) proposals and determine the best aspects to focus on. Although I did not gain complete clarity on the specifics of our internship tasks, I understood the general direction the organisation and mentors wanted to take. Initially, I struggled to come up with ideas, as I tend to generate my best thoughts when I am alone and in a state of calm.
Before proceeding further in this blog, let me provide an overview of what my organisation, Here Comes Bitcoin, aims to achieve. Here Comes Bitcoin is dedicated to offering free, open-source creative materials related to Bitcoin. The organisation encourages individuals to create and share their own Bitcoin-themed artworks, which may be added to the collection if they meet the quality standards.In the future, this initiative has the potential to inspire a diverse range of creative projects. By integrating art and culture, it aims to make Bitcoin more visible and easier to understand.
So after that meeting, I called Abhijay for the first time, and we discussed all the possible ideas we could explore to make the most of our internship.
We brainstormed ideas like creating GIFs from the existing sticker set, Here Comes Bitcoin wallpapers, comic strips, collaborations with others, revamping the website, improving our social media presence, UI kits for Bitcoin assets, and more.
We shared our ideas with M&M (not the one from The Boys, but our mystery mentor) and Haley. They said we'd have a meeting to go over all these ideas in detail and then figure out our next steps.
But don't get the wrong idea—it's not all work and no play from the start. Sure, it's professional, but the interactions with our mentor are really enjoyable. In meetings, we stay focused and make sure not to waste a single minute, keeping our work goals clear. But on Signal, it's like 70% fun and 30% work. I'm not kidding! We chat about everything from different anime to why M&M has swords hanging in his living room, and how Abhijay was sent to work in a basement filled with mice that hiss like rattlesnakes. And I always seem to get the cake from the mentors! I have to admit, M&M's sense of humour is new to me, but I love it.
The biggest challenge, however, is the 12.5-hour time difference between our time zones. Does that affect me? Not at all. I have been a night owl ever since I started college.
Returning to the story, during the meeting, we eliminated a few ideas from the list as they did not add significant value to the company. Ultimately, we decided to focus on comic strips, Here Comes Bitcoin and Bitcoin design collaboration, website additions (at that time, we did not anticipate having to revamp the entire website later), a Bitcoin design community banner for their homepage header (using Here Comes Bitcoin assets in the banner), and UI kits for the Bitcoin community utilizing the assets.
Abhijay and I initially planned to start working on comics and UI kits. Following M&M's suggestion, we explored two popular comics: Achewood and The Far Side. If you are unfamiliar with them, I highly recommend reading them. Initially, I was unaware of these comics, but M&M suggested, "The Far Side is extremely well-known and probably easier to emulate. Achewood, which gets my vote for being the most well-written comic ever, is genius. I encourage everyone reading this (including you, Haley) to get to know Achewood, even if we move in a more The Far Side direction."
I must admit that both are excellent. We discussed both approaches and ultimately decided to proceed with The Far Side approach—a single-panel comic explaining or conveying an idea. We informed M&M and Haley of our decision and also planned to create individual UI kits using the assets. We began working on these tasks, staying in touch with our mentors and discussing everything with them.
Then came the day when Haley informed us in a meeting that our website needed a complete revamp. She suggested that we should start looking into some UI changes for it.
The objective has now shifted, and Abhijay and I began exploring various websites for inspiration while also attempting to create comics. Initially, our comics were not very good, as neither of us are animators or have prior experience in comic creation. We came across numerous websites for inspiration and considered how we could implement specific ideas from those websites into our own. After extensive discussions among the four of us, Abhijay and I finally created the Figma file to begin working on the UI and wire framing for the Here Comes Bitcoin website.
This concludes this blog post. In the next blog, I will discuss the ideas we implemented into our new and revamped website, as well as the other projects we began working on alongside this one.
See you guys in next blog.