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Thursday, July 4, 2024

To Skip from Juliana - Big Brain Award


 This is a lovely idea from Juliana. The delicate line drawing and the medium sized name and the gigantic initial is a good design lesson. To use 3 different sizes is a tried and true design principle. The postal marking are pretty nice additions - except we don't need the wording on top of the mountain. The wavy lines would have been just enough.

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Obviously. thinking to use a wet-dry shop vac on a giant barbecue sauce spill was evidence that MrWilson had a big brain. So, I created the BigBrainAward for his Christmas present that was a surprise and he was very pleased to be the winner. As we were gathering all the gift wrapping and ribbons, I took the award and tucked it away. It wasn't even a beautiful hand made certificate. It was just a quick fill-in off the computer using a free template.

Over the course of the following year whenever someone did something that was extra helpful at coming up with a solution to a problem, I would exclaim, "Wow! That was brilliant. You might be getting The Big Brain Award this year.". It became a real *thing* and by Christmas of that year, I made a big deal about the presentation of the Big Brain Award and of course, MrWilson won that year and also every year after that. I would encourage the kids to keep trying. 

I never printed out a new cheesy certificate, I just used the same one and crossed out the date and put in a new date. It was such a goofy thing - but everyone acted like they really wanted to win. I don't remember how many years it went on - but eventually I lost the certificate - or perhaps someone else decided it was time to retire the award and surreptitiously ditched it. But the concept lives on and it's a standard comment when someone figures something out - to say, "Oh wow, you might get the big-brain award this year."

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