Introduction
Story
“Don’t worry, I got this all under control, my social media career is going to take off.” I said reassuringly as I hung up my old uniform. “Did you see how many views I got on my last post?”
“I don’t care if you get a million views, Richard. You haven’t paid your share of rent for three months, how are you going to pay for rent now that you don’t have a real job?”
“I do have a job though.”
“No, your dream of being a big social media influencer isn’t going to work out! You have to understand that this stupid dream of yours is hurting everyone around you. It’s been three months since you paid any rent. To be honest, Sam and I are getting pretty annoyed.”
“You know what?” I responded, “You and your roommate are just haters who don’t believe in my dream. I’m going to make it, and I’m going to buy a mansion in Beverly Hills, and you guys won’t get any of the wealth!”
We looked at each other as an awkward silence filled the room. “Get out!” she stammered, “You can’t sleep on our couch anymore!”
“You can’t do that!”
“Yes I can and I will, I don’t care that you’re my brother.
“Listen… I’m sorry Sarah, I’ll try to keep up on re…”
“No, you had many chances, this was the last straw! GET OUT!”
As I stood on the curb, worried and wondering about where I’d go, all I could think was, “I should post about this, it’ll get so many views.” I pulled up Instagram, snapped a pic and captioned it, “Just got Evicted LOL, guess I’m just 2 hardcore for the haters!!?!” That was posted around 2:27 pm, but I knew that if I was going to get through this I would need to find a place to stay before 10 or so. Luckily, I knew just the place; there was this new luxury hotel that just opened not too far from my sister’s apartment called The Ultra Luxe. With five star ratings across the board, I knew it was somewhere I’d want to stay. The only problem? I didn’t have any money, I had spent it all on Gucci and Supreme. I was confident, however, that with my clout, I could get maybe a couple of free stays there.
Fortunately, the Ultra Luxe was everything I expected and more. Silver and gold lined the pearly white walls, and statues danced in the fountains. I was walking right into a Disney castle. I stumped up the crimson carpet, stumbling over my feet as I looked around to take in all the glory. At the end of the red carpet I was met with the reception desk.
“Hello” I announced to the receptionist, “I know you’re shocked to be face to face with a celebrity, but please, hold your excitement. I just want to know if this establishment would like to make a deal with me.”
The receptionist slowly lifted his head from his computer screen, “It’s always pleasant when celebrities join us, but if you wouldn’t mind, may I ask for your name sir. All the celebs in LA make it awfully difficult to remember everyone.”
I was shocked. “How could you forget the name of Richard D Noone?”
I was given a puzzled look. As If he was visited by the reincarnation of Santa Claus, Jimi Hendrix, and Abraham lincoln all in one person.
“I’m sorry, who?” he asked.
“Really,” I answered defensively, “You’ve never heard of @richieNo on Twitter, Instagram, or Youtube? I’m the hot new thing! My presence on social media is like corn in Iowa. I’m getting all the clicks, just check out all the likes on this pic is just posted.” I busted out my phone and opened my latest Instagram post to show the man.
“Sir, that post only has 42 likes.”
I was getting angry now. “Yeah, cause I only posted it an hour ago DUMMY!”
“Sir, please leave,” voiced the receptionist.
I was set off. I started yelling at him about being a hater. During that time, I was met with disgusted looks or pity and embarrassment from the receptionist and onlookers. Three minutes later I was escorted out by security.Obviously my plan didn’t work, so I was going to have to settle with something less than the best. I knew there was a motel a few blocks away so I decided to give that a shot. By the time I left the Ultra-Luxe it was about 4:00 pm. I only had 6 hours left to find a place. After about 30 minutes or so navigating the sidewalks of the city of angels, I made it to the dingy Motel. It was basically what I expected: dark, gloomy, more akin to a shady nightclub than someplace you’d want to spend the night. I walked up to the busted up reception desk that was so old, it looked like it was built during the great depression. “Hey, I’m Stan, what do you want?” the receptionist hollered.
“Well, hello Stan, I was wondering if I could sponsor this motel online in exchange for you guys letting me stay here for a week or so for free?”
Stan looked at me with a face that practically screamed, “Really, who the does this guy think he is?”
“Uhh.. no.”
“But I’m Richie Noone, the biggest social media star around!”
In response, Stan gave me a “We don’t give out free stays, especially for people we’ve never heard of. If you want to stay here you’ll have to cough up the miniscule amount that everyone else does.”
The longer I stood there the angrier I got.
“What’s with people in this town not knowing who I am? This is bull! I am Richard D Noone, why don’t people know me? You guys suck!” I yelled in the lobby.
Stan jumped up onto the desk and stared me down.
“Better start running boy.” He cursed under his breath.
You had better believe that I booked it out of there as fast as I could. That man chased me for two city blocks until I lost him in an alleyway.I sat in that cold alleyway, contemplating my life up to this point. Tired and freezing I had one last idea up my sleeve. Craigslist. There are always people looking for roommates on Craigslist, maybe one of those people will be nearby and will let me stay for free in exchange for clout. I hopped on the site and searched for “roommate” in housing. One ad caught my attention immediately. It read “Roommate needed, negotiable rent.” I had to check it out. The dude was named Rick and he lived on 1234 Shady Street, I shot him an email and an hour later he replied. “Hello, Rich.” He messaged me, “Let’s meet at my place later to get to know each other and discuss all the logistics. I’m looking forward to meeting my new roommate!” I emailed back that I would be there in an hour and was on my way.
I got to his house around 7:45 so I was definitely running out of time. This was either going to be the place that I stayed at or my last stop before becoming homeless. I knocked on the door and waited a bit until it was opened by a very large lad, perhaps the largest lad I had ever seen. This man was about 7 feet tall and he had skin so pale, I doubted that he left his house in years. This was probably the first time he opened his door since he moved in. “You must be Rich,” he bellowed with the lowest voice ever. “Come inside.” I entered the dungeon and threw up a bit in my mouth. There were cobwebs left and right, some strange stains on the kitchen table and a random hole in one of the floorboards that was so deep that you could see the pipes in the ground. Left and right there were stacks of empty mayonnaise jars, I’m talking like 57 jars strewn across his kitchen. This man probably lived on the stuff. There was a strange jar on the kitchen counter that was oozing a green liquid, I stuck my finger in the liquid and…
“ARE YOU TOUCHING MY OOZE JAR!” Rick shouted with the most intensity i have ever heard and then proceeded to throw a Kirkland Signature coffee maker at me. I ducked but the coffee maker hit my arm and definitely broke something. I had to get out. I had to be somewhere- anywhere- else. Maybe Sarah would let me sleep on her couch again if I apologized and promised to get a job. All I knew then was that I had to leave.I ran and ran and finally at 9:40 I got back to my sister’s apartment. I walked up to the door I was booted out of earlier, I knocked on it three times and waited. At 9:45 she opened up, looked at me, smiled, and said one word.“NO!”
Digital Media Illustrations
In Digital Media, we had to make banners for the four sections of our narrative page. Those banners are what you see now behind the headings for each section. We had to make them relate to our story and in a sense, be sort of illustrations for our narratives. Being a design student, I decided to make mine in Illustrator since that’s what we had been using for the past few months for our big illustration for our narrative which you will see below. We learned how to use Adobe Dreamweaver and how to do some basic html coding to make the layout of these images on the page more interesting. 
A couple weeks back we were given the chance in Digital Media to make whatever illustration we wanted. We didn’t have to connect it to any other project or theme. I decided to draw a Fender Precision Bass Guitar because I knew it would be simple and easy to get done in only a couple of weeks. I traced a picture of a bass in Illustrator, then added some personal details and touches to make it a bit more interesting.Design Illustration
For our second big project in design class we made illustrations based on the short stories we wrote in English class. My story is about a man named Richard D. Noone, a talentless wannabe social media star with a massive ego. This ego of his causes him to expect free handouts everywhere, however he doesn’t realize that nobody actually knows who he is. The story starts out with him living with his sister, but he’s kicked out after not paying his share of the rent for three months. With nowhere to stay, our protagonist must find a place to spend the night before dark. I thought a character like this would be a fun story idea. For My illustration, I chose the part where Richard gets thrown out of his sister’s apartment. Instead of drawing humans, students were asked to create creatures to represent our main protagonists. We took parts of animals that represent our character’s personality traits and fused them into one. The creature I made to represent Richard’s personality traits has a goldfish’s head, a chameleon’s body, sloth legs, a snake’s tail, and a pair of wasp wings. The Goldfish’s head is meant to represent his obliviousness to the fact that nobody knows or likes him. The chameleon’s body is because he tries to be things that he isn’t, while the sloth legs demonstrate his laziness. The snake’s tail and the wasp wings demonstrate a few more of his more negative qualities, like how he’s really annoying and nobody really likes him. Both snakes and wasps are commonly treated as pests that nobody really wants around but they have to deal with anyway.To create this image I made an edit of an apartment building hallway in Adobe Photoshop using images from the internet, then traced I it in Adobe Illustrator. I used one point perspective to give it a cool three dimensional vibe. Finally, I inserted my creature being thrown out of one of the doors and added the finishing touches like the shadows and glares.
