WEEK 31 - Hom is where the art is
Lets taco ‘bout puns, shall we? It’s thyme.
I used to think puns were too silly to be appropriate for use in my aspiring-to-be-serious creative career. Although I relished a well-placed pun in my private life, I used them sparingly in my early design days.
But, as with many things, I learned and grew and realized that even serious businesses can benefit from this kind of wordplay. Although puns are cheesy (there’s no way around that) - the silliness can actually be a super effective communication technique.
Puns are a great way to keep a reader engaged and amused because puns are more complex than “regular” language. Thus, they require a little extra brain power and they provide a little extra payoff, which leaves your audience wonton more.
Plus, processing puns uses both halves of our brains, whereas regular language only occupies one half. So, it’s actually a scientific fact that we should all be using s’more puns.
I personally think that puns are the sign of a creatively active brain because they demonstrate your brain’s ability to think outside the linguistic box and connect the dots in unexpected ways.
That’s textbook creative thinking.
Your assignment: Create an art pun.
It can be a pun in your artistic style or art about puns or however else you want to interpret the assignment. The important parts are ART and PUN.
Thought starters: There are many directions you could go with your punny art (or your art puns)! My approach was to find a short pun that combined two things of creative interest to me.
I went with a food/art crossover pun. The verbal bit was accomplished by substituting the word flour for the word flower. Then I added a visual element by creating a groovy 60s style “flower power” design with different types of flour, adding another dimension to the flower/flour pun.
A quick online search of puns can get the creative juices flowing (or browse through my own punny phrase generator!). Here are some art-related examples to get you started:
Hue do you think you are?
You are a one in vermillion kind of artist.
Calligraphy always helps me relax and quill out.
Caption idea: I’d be missing out if I didn’t encourage you to sprinkle some puns into your caption haha. Similar to how we sprinkle salt on our food to our individual tastes, use as many or as few puns in your caption as you see fit.
Bonus fun fact: There are several kinds of puns.
One type of pun relies on words that sound the same but mean different things (homophonic).
“I’ve heard chickens aren’t the best pets because they have a fowl odor.”
Another kind of pun relies on words that look the same but mean different things (homographic).
“I caught a sea bass! No, wait. It’s at least a C+.” (A pun for programmers.)
Homonymic puns could be homophonic, homographic, or both.
Recursive puns require an understanding of the first part for the second part (the payoff) to make sense.
“A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother.”
And my flour power art is an example of a visual pun! (With a touch of homophonic punnage mixed in for extra flavor.)
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Don’t forget to tag me @homsweethom and use the #HOMwork & #HOMwork2021 hashtag when you post on Instagram. I love looking through your excellent creations and sharing a few of my favs every week in my IG Stories before the next assignment is posted.
I can’t wait to see what you come up with!
