Dragons and Sunshine

Sbarker08’s avatar is beautiful and distinctive. What first drew my eye were the warm colors and the striking lines used in the design. The avatar is made of up two triangles. In the top triangle is a yellow half circle with a red background. The bottom triangle has a smaller red half circle with beams extending out from it. The background of the bottom triangle is orange. Initially, I thought that the avatar might have a hidden reference to Star Wars because it looked like two suns. I thought the warm colors might be an indication of summer and heat. I was excited to discover the hidden meanings behind the design.

Turns out, there was no hidden reference to Star Wars, but the top yellow circle was meant to be a symbol of the sun. Sbarker chose this yellow half circle to represent the sun because “it’s yellow and it’s a star and it’s a circle.” The redish background, I was delighted to find, was meant to represent dragons because “dragons are brave and full of fiery ferociousness.” Sbarker loves dragons and has been obsessed with them since he was a kid. When I asked him about the small red circle with the beams, he extended his arms out and said it represents family. “I’m being clever” he said, laughing, and then added, “Family is the brightest thing in my life [and] it’s forever.” The orange background came back to dragons and stars. The two triangles are meant to represent boats. “Boats are an important part of my identity” he told me, and triangles look a lot like sails.

Because I know Sbarker really well, none of the components of his avatar surprised me…I know he enjoys all of those things. But it was still interesting to see what he picked. Of all the elements to incorporate into his avatar, I wasn’t expecting so much symbolism to tie back to dragons. I love how uniquely him that element is. Looking at the avatar now, I feel that it represents him well.

My favorite part of his avatar is the element representing family. I think it is beautiful, not only in how it looks, but in what it represents. My avatar is very different from his, but we both included elements of nature: he chose the sun, I chose mountains and the ocean. We also included elements relating to our passions: he used triangles for boats, I used the color brown to represent the violin. I think this is a fun way to look into someone’s personality and see what things matter the most to them. And I’m not going to lie, I love that dragons made the top of Sbarker’s priorities.

“Red Dragon” by rumpleteaser is licensed under CC BY 2.0.