It appears to be an exclusive club: shimmying Shaquille O’Neal, crying Michael Jordan, that one guy blinking a lot. But Kelsey Hammer wants to show students just how easy it is to make and star in your own GIFs.
“I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if everyone were GIF-ing?’” Hammer said. “Because everyone loves GIFs, we use them all the time, and being able to create them is really fun.”
Hammer, a graduate assistant at the Undergraduate Library, has worked with students in GIF creation workshops offered in the UL before. She created the UNC GIFable contest to introduce more students to what she considers an enjoyable and educational design challenge.
“I think it’s a really great way to introduce people to design principles,” she said. “I think the best way to learn design skills is to start with something really fun and easy and then work your way up, and this is kind of the perfect stepping stone.”
Jennie Goforth, research and design services librarian at the Undergraduate Library, said the UL wanted to offer students the opportunity to take GIFs beyond their informal origin and use them as storytelling tools. Goforth also noted that creating GIFs is good practice in design, as well as a chance for students to record parts of their life at Carolina.
