Charles Apple

Miranda Mulligan kicked up her heels today with a piece on The Virginian-Pilot’s features fron that instructs you — yes, even you — how to do the dance step with Crank Dat Soulja Boy.

Oh, come on. You want to do the dance. You know you do.

So here’s how:

For a detailed view, click the thumbnail:

Miranda answered a few questions for us:

Q. So how did you pull off that dance step graphic today? Did you actually have to learn the dance? Or did you already know it?

A. I was familiar with it because, well, it is hard not to be familiar. But no, I did not know it well enough to be able to explain the steps from memory.

However, if you search on YouTube for “Soulja Boy” “Crank That (Dat),” there is an overabundance of instructional videos from which to choose – especially ones where aspiring young dancers break down the steps so simply that pretty much anyone can learn them.

Q. Are you old enough to remember the Macarena? Just wondering…

A. Yes, Charles I am old enough to remember the Macarena. Geez – I ain’t that young!

Q. The figures are quite charming in their simplicity. Did you use any specific reference? Or did you just wing it?

A. I watched a couple of the videos from YouTube about a 100 times and took a couple screengrabs for reference, so that I could get some of the defining body positions of a move. However, everyone dances slightly differently, so the body forms had to look somewhat vague.

Q. It can be difficult at times to inject fun into our stodgy old newspapers. How do you keep these fresh ideas coming? What’s the trick?

A. I am not sure how fresh this idea is, however, it was a lot of fun. And, I like to have fun while I am working.

The team of creative people who plan the features section here (at The Pilot) have a great sense of humor. We have a lot of laughs in the meetings. So it is relatively easy to throw any crazy idea out there and then see what sticks. This one just happened to stick.

We should note that Miranda was aided by her pals Malcom Venable (reporter) and Luis Vilches (designer) on the presentation.

Check out more of Miranda’s work in her NewsPageDesigner portfolio.

Thanks so much, Miranda. Crank dat!

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EDIT:

Here’s my favorite Crank dat video.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 29th, 2007 at 3:17 pm and is filed under Amusing stuff, Graphics, Illustration, Innovative ideas, News design, Newspapers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.