An Interview with the Genius that is THopkins22

When interviewing THopkins22 about his avatar, I learned that he was much more than the star wide-receiver of the Oak Hill Raiders football team.  Some of his other passions include the sports: lacrosse, basketball, and golf.  Aside from sports, THopkins22 loves all things nature, especially the beach and mountains.  All of these elements are brought together to create THopkins’ very unique avatar.

THopkins’s avatar may seem simple, but it describes this complex man perfectly.  His avatar consists of a white background with a red line splitting the square in half diagonally from the top left corner to the bottom right corner.  Within the black border, there are various shapes including: three green triangles in the center, and a blue circle in the top right corner.  When questioned about the three green triangles, THopkins said:  “They represent evergreen pine trees, because those are Maine’s state tree.”  THopkins’ love of nature and his home state are combined in a very clever way that also makes for a good flag design.  Another element of his avatar that I was curious about was the red diagonal line going across the center.  I asked him what it meant and he said, “The line separates the flag into 2 triangles, and triangles are the strongest shape.”  Strength is clearly something that means a lot to THopkins as he showed us with his avatar.  Overall, the avatar’s simplicity grabs my attention and it looks like a real flag that could’ve been professionally made.

Learning about THopkins’ process of making this wonderful avatar was truly one of the joys of my life.  Every shape on his avatar meant something different to him whether it was sports or nature.  The blue circle is meant to represent a ball and the color of the ocean.  The three green triangles represent trees and mountains, and the red line represents strength.  Being tasked to compare my sorry excuse for an avatar with THopkins’ beautiful work of art is seemingly impossible, but I’ll try my best.  We both used our favorite sports when creating our respective avatars.  THopkins had many rough drafts, whereas I only had one other draft.  I asked THopkins if he was inspired by any real flags when creating his flag and he said:  “Yes, Norway has a line going across the middle.”  I wasn’t inspired by any real flags, but he was.  THopkins and I had many similarities and differences when it came to crafting our avatars.

THopkins22 avatar followed Roman Mars’ five principles of flag design, which resulted in his exquisite final avatar design.  After going through this interview with my fellow classmate, I learned so much more about THopkins and his passions. 

“Golf Club Against Ball” by kulicki is licensed under CC BY 2.0