Much to my excitement, sustained love for the daily designs helped me push past just one year of pixels, and the project has since surpassed 1,000 posts! After posting every day for a year, it no longer seemed like a chore, but just something I did. It was still far from easy to pull off (I worked through vacations, being sick, as well as personal medical issues on top of a full-time job), but it was something that I loved doing, and loved being able to say that I was a part of.
The daily designs did have to come to an end, however, when once-in-a-lifetime flooding in 2021 displaced my partner and I. It became impossible to pick up the pieces of our life AND post every day. It was a really hard time, but support from the community was incredibly uplifting. Fellow creators pitched in to do research, create pixel art designs, and write captions so the posts could continue on a fairly regular basis. It was so touching to see so many others excited about what I was doing, and I really couldn't thank them enough. After about two months of project limbo, I returned to making close-to-daily designs and worked to build the project even more.
There have been a few posts that I have created over the course of the project that made me say, "Wait, no way?!" but my all-time favorite is still the first one (which was also one of the reasons why I wanted to start the project in the first place). The fact is "Humans and domesticated animals make up 96% of mammals on the planet (by mass)". It is such an important fact because it really puts into perspective what humans have done to the planet, and how important it is to save what is still left. We collectively think that there is a big, wild world out there, but we don't realize how un-wild we have already made it.
The biggest piece of Pixel Planet Today is the pixel designs themselves, but the project has also grown to include Giphy animations, eco-friendly merch, and a quarterly newsletter. Giving audiences multiple ways to enjoy pixel art while learning about the planet means a wider reach for the project, but more importantly, more climate education.
The project hasn't stopped growing there, either. As we (a small team and myself) continue to build off of the climate education project, it only made sense to create a company where environmental tech projects could live and grow. Enter Terrabyte - home to not only Pixel Planet Today, but other creative projects meant to take on the climate crisis. Currently, we are developing an eco-centric videogame titled Wasted Space, a classic arcade game which focuses on turning space debris into upgrades for your spaceship! In the same way Pixel Planet Today makes an impact by spreading a pro-conservation message, Wasted Space has gameplay mechanics that push ideas of sustainable living (however fictional).
The game is currently under development, but we're immensely excited about the progress we're making. We take great delight in sharing snippets of our journey on our social media platforms and through our 'little-bytes' newsletter. It's an adventure that we're thrilled to have you join us on.
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