Fringe, My Alternate Universe

By Sarah Proost (@SarahProost)

Hi Fringies!

I am honored to be writing a guest blog post for you guys. First of all… I miss the Fringe days. I miss our Friday nights. This is my Fringe story.

I started watching Fringe as soon as it came out. Mainly because I saw that Joshua Jackson was starring, but after watching the pilot episode, that quickly changed. And I became hooked.

As I am writing this, I am browsing through morethanoneofeverything, this website I came across, I think it was mid-season 4, and I saw they were doing Fringe campaigns. By a team called Fringenuity. Founded by Aimee (@aimeeinchains) and Annie (@birdandbear). 

And when I saw what they were doing, I knew I had to be a part of it. I just had to. At first I just joined a few campaigns, using the icons that were available at the time (Shout-out to Cheri (@cheribot), to Ian (@Zort70) and Lynsey (@Frozenaura) who also created awesome icons and banners!). 

But then I started wondering, what if I make icons too. I was studying graphic design after all. So I immediately made my first icon for #LoveIsTheAnswer, in a bunch of different colours (that soon became a standard).  I remember I made it very last minute and spent like 15 minutes on it. A spur of the moment kind of thing. Then basically spammed it to Fringenuity. I tweeted it to them, I posted it on their website. 

And so I got in contact with Aimee. And with Nik (@Nikolai3D), who invented the Art Matrix(!).

Turned out that people loved it. So I joined the campaign and it all started for me. I had become part of something so special. Little did I know at the time. I underestimated the impact of it all. 

But I loved doing it. Knowing that I was using my skills to do something good. Waiting week after week, curious about what the hashtag was going to be. Soon I was on a roll. Sometimes designing one icon wasn’t enough. I had to get all of my ideas out there. Sometimes it was really challenging, some days I had no clue what to create, but it always came together. Everyone was always so supportive. When people tweeted me saying that they love what I had created, saying they were looking forward to see what I’d make for the next week… I knew I was doing something right. And that it was all worth it. Here are some of my favourite season 4 icons: 

Getting to know Fringies, breaking Twitter, trending, in my case: staying up ‘till the crack of dawn to participate and have so much fun… It had really become something I looked forward to every week. 

Then there was this hashtag #DarkestBeforeDawn. And this girl named Natalia (@NataliaQuique) contacted me on Twitter, asking if I could turn the icon into a poster. I’m pretty sure we used to tweet before that, but I think it’s safe to say that this particular tweet has changed my life. To this day, we are still close friends, living worlds apart. We have each other’s backs. She helped me through some difficult season 5 design dilemmas. Because for some reason, season 5 was a lot harder for me. She previewed a lot of my designs and I am really thankful to her.

I have made some close Fringe friends. People I still talk to on a daily basis. Like Jane (@JaneAWilson2), Nik and Lynsey and off course Nat. This year I was lucky enough to meet Nik in person in Amsterdam! That was so much fun!

After season 4 ended, I remember us waiting, day after day, for news of renewal. And when we got it… We trended, we broke Twitter, we were all so genuinely happy. We couldn’t have done this without Fringenuity. But not just Fringenuity. Every single person that helped our campaigns week after week, in any way. It’s because of all of us. 

But we didn’t just do episode campaigns. We campaigned during Comic-Con. #InWymanWeTrust. 

We all know what happened at Comic-Con. That’s the stuff of legends. How one symbol, one flower, can have so much impact. I went to twitter jail for the first time. I remember that very well. But that’s what alt-accounts are for. For when you tweet too much ;-). I also want to re-share a poster that I did. I don’t remember where in the timeline this fits into exactly, but we also did a #WatchItLive campaign. And this is one of my absolute favourite posters of all time.

And when season 5 started, we were back in action. Because if you think Fringenuity would stop after accomplishing season 5 renewal, you were wrong. We did it all over again. With new hashtags and new icons, but with less pressure and even more fun. 

And then Fringe ended. But Fringenuity did not. We started focusing on Wyman’s new project “Almost Human”. We were doing so great. Icons, banners, posters. But then the most unthinkable tragedy happened. We had lost our founder Aimee Long. I have no words for this. We all still miss her very much. And we tried to move on the best we could. And we really tried with Almost Human, but sadly we weren’t successful due to a number of reasons I won’t get into.

Last but not least: an unreleased, never before seen (except for Nat) poster I made of Olivia Dunham.

The truth of the matter is that the Fringe void is still there. But I’m happy it happened.

All in all, Fringe gave us something to look forward to, Fringe gave us a loving community, Fringe gave us friendship, Fringe changed our lives.

Walter: “The only thing better than a cow is a human. Unless you need milk, then you really need a cow.”  

So, here is to us.

Here is to Fringe.

To Fringenuity.

Love,

Sarah (@SarahProost)