Out of the Shell #1: @adjoining (aka Ric from Mexico)
Welcome to Out of the Shell, a series of interviews with the developers, designers, and doers behind TurtleCoin. This is @gigantomachia and I’ll be your host.
The TurtleCoin community includes a diverse group of people that share a love of TRTL, and the first TurtleCoin contributor we’re highlighting is no different. @Adjoining is an early member of the community and the one behind the awesome TurtleCoin logo. His real name is Ric and he’s a full-time university student in Mexico, where he was born and raised.
How did you first learn about TurtleCoin?
As a lot of the community, I found out about it in one of the first posts on 4chan /biz/ about needing help for TurtleCoin in different areas. At the bottom of that list was a Design/PR team. I’ve done some quick logos and edits for 4chan users in other boards before, so this was a no brainer for me to try. So I joined the Discord server and uploaded a concept, which became the current logo. At the time, it had some very rough edges, but everybody just embraced it, @ostettd is the one that took on the task of making it perfect. But we kept the first logo as our Discord emoji mascot!
What’s your background? Are you a graphic designer?
This is gonna come off as a weird one, but my actual field is finance. I’ve never called myself a designer because there are people that study years to become professional designers. My experience around design came at around 12 years old, with some very basic understanding of how Photoshop works. As the years went on, I started developing more skills until I landed my first freelance gigs at around 18.
What was it about TurtleCoin that drew you in and made you want to contribute?
Well, I’ve been a /biz/ lurker for a while now, but never really bothered to go deeper into most of those threads because every project seems like they are trying too hard right now. The fancy names and overly complex explanations on how stuff works made me start using that board just to get a sentiment of what people were talking about. TurtleCoin’s name caught my attention instantly and, once I read through the website, I realized this was probably something I could try on my laptop. I had some trouble setting things up at first, but everyone in here was ready to help at any time. So to sum that up, I joined for fun, and stayed because of how approachable everything and everyone was.
How long have you been interested in crypto?
The first time I heard about crypto — or, to be more specific, Bitcoin — was around 2012. Again, on 4chan when it was still a thing for hackers and drug dealers. I never really went deep into the tech and dismissed it as internet meme magic until late 2016, when I gave the Bitcoin white paper a read and grasped what I could, then went on Google to fill in the blanks and I’ve been trying to learn as much as I can since.
Is TurtleCoin the first crypto asset you’ve been involved in as a contributor?
Yup. It’s been awesome to spend time with the marketing team because it seems like a lot of us are in the same boat.
What’s the TurtleCoin marketing team working on right now?
We are now quite a big team of people from all different backgrounds, and it’s amazing how we’re all on the same page regarding the project. Currently our goal is to bring the TurtleCoin project under one banner, which is going to be about ease of access and the welcoming vibe the project already gives off. We’re currently focusing our efforts on making everything about the blockchain and how TurtleCoin works more appealing to the average consumer.
Why do you think marketing is important in this kind of project?
I think marketing is important in anything that wants to appeal to a bigger audience, because with the amount of information around us these days, most people tend to dismiss stuff that’s not familiar looking. By that I mean, we’re used to seeing companies and projects like this be presented in a more serious way.
Do you have any requests for the community? How could people get involved if they want?
The translation platform we’re working on for everything TurtleCoin is a great chance for people of all different backgrounds to give their input. Proof reading is also a very important task that we can fall behind on given the amount of content being made every day. In the design side of things, we’re always open to ideas and comments on how things should be done. As Rock said before, even those that think they have no skills have a place in the community. A helpful and open community is what has made us gain so much traction, I think. I would like to invite anyone interested in contributing with their help and skills to the project to go in the #dev_ channels in our discord.
Any idea what you want to be doing after your graduate? Thinking of a traditional financial route, or do you want to try to make a career in crypto?
My current focus is on project management and asset allocation, but I talked to someone from the Turtle chat the other day and they got me intrigued in business Intelligence. I tend to lean more into the business management side of finance; macroeconomics is not really my strong point. But I also believe my career will be directly correlated with the crypto world in the not-so-far future. So, yeah, I don’t really know what’s next for me. Ha.
- @gigantomachia
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