Background
While I was in college, I started a new student organization called "Album of the Week" (AOTW). At the time, my college roommates and I had shared many conversations about music. We often discussed the music we loved, the music that defined our tastes while growing up, and new music discoveries that were shaping our tastes moving forward.
It occurred to us that in academic and organizational settings, these kinds of discussions usually revolve around other forms of media, namely literature and film. We noticed that there was a bit of a gap in the market for discussions revolving around music pop culture.
So, with the help of some of our mutual friends (and mutual music fanatics), we started an organization for that purpose. The core idea was to select an album every week to discuss with the club's membership, spanning across many different genres and eras of commercial music.
Long story short, this concept very quickly attracted a massive audience of students. In the span of two years, we grew from Zoom discussion rooms with less than 10 attendees to lecture halls with more than 100. Starting and growing this organization is one of my most cherished creative endeavors. Perhaps I will write more about it another time...
Anyways, we quickly developed a series of events that would occur at the end of every semester. We called it "AOTW Wrapped", named after the annual craze where every streaming service recaps a user's listening habits at the end of the year. AOTW Wrapped recaps and celebrates the experiences and accomplishments of the organization over the last semester. These events are known for being quite the spectacle. During my tenure, we featured love jazz bands, hosted gingerbread house contests, and ran escape rooms at these events.
In late 2025, long after my tenure, my successor reached out to me with a request for a custom prop for the upcoming AOTW Wrapped. This article describes the process of putting it together.
The concept & inspiration
I was minding my business one Friday afternoon in November when I received a text from Album of the Week's current president (and a close friend), Casey:
I should explain what some of these words mean.
At the end of every AOTW meeting, all attendees rate the album on a scale from 1 to 10. We average out these scores and report them to our website and social media. One of the albums discussed this semester was Icedancer by Bladee, an internet cloud rapper from Sweden with a notoriously passionate fanbase. Many of the meeting attendees were not part of the fanbase themselves, and refrained from joining it upon listening to this record. The album received a decently low but still respectable 5.8/10.
This score was met with the dismay and rage from many of our instagram followers, many of whom were presumably from student radio. Here are a few of the comments we received:
I feel like now is a good time to mention that Bladee's most popular song is called "Be Nice 2 Me".
As an organization centered around music discourse, AOTW is no stranger to negative opinions and commentary. Usually, we're able to brush it off and tell people that they shouldn't have an issue with the score if they didn't actually attend the meeting. This instance, though, was different. The discourse around Bladee's Icedancer was more outspoken than AOTW had ever seen, and naturally, #boycottaotw very quickly became a meme within the org.
Before every Wrapped, AOTW compiles a mixtape of tracks from the albums discussed during the semester and distributes them to the members. There really wasn't another option for this semester's mixtape title OTHER than "#boycottaotw." What Casey was envisioning though, was more than just a mixtape title. He wanted a relic.
My calling is to take crazy, absurd, or exciting ideas and turn them into reality, and thus, my mission to create a 2000's-era hip-hop #BOYCOTTAOTW bling chain had begun.
Designing the pendant
I started with the text:
Casey and I both agreed that the third option was the most optimal. Blackletter fonts have a bit of a presence in streetwear, especially streetwear that leans a bit towards gothic aesthetics. The boldness of the letters felt like it was loud and bombastic enough to communicate the "#boycottaotw message", but outrageous enough to still feel ironic.
Next, I tweaked the border and colors a bit to get closer to the ideal visual style. I also had to play around with the Y in BOYCOTT and the O in AOTW a bit, since they were overlapping. After slicing and dicing the vectors a bit, I got the letters to interact properly with each other.
Casey requested a different hashtag font that fit better with the font of the words. The text conversation that emerged from this bit of feedback illuminates how I feel about design conversations. In my experience, whether you're the client or the designer, it can be difficult to properly articulate what it is that you're looking for, or what modifications you want made. I thought our conversation surrounding this topic was pretty funny.
Eventually, we settled on this as the final design of the pendant.
I then teased it in the Album of the Week discord server.
I modeled the pendant in Fusion by importing the pendant svg and extruding it to dimensions that looked acceptable.
I added a mounting ring to the top as well, between the Y and the C, just a simple torus combined with the rest of the model. I tried my best to align it with the pendant's center of gravity.
Printing the chain
To save time and filament, I wanted to begin the fabrication process by printing a scale model, comparing it to a jewelry bust, and scaling up appropriately.
Since I didn't have a jewelry bust on standby, ready to use, I decided to print my own. I looked for a generic bust (complete with a neck and head) on Makerworld, but couldn't find anything I liked. So, I settled on a bust of Walter White.
I printed a very small version first, measured the circumference of the small version with a piece of string, then measured the circumference of my own head (using the same method), and did the math to print a bust that was 40% the size of my own.
Then, I printed a small version of the pendant and an arbitrary length of Cuban Chain. I trimmed the chain to size and used a piece of metal wire to join it with the pendant.
I was pretty satisfied with the scale of everything on first print. Using this scale did not only allow me to visualize how the pendant would sit on someone's chest; it also allowed me to solidify the number of links I needed to use in the chain. It ended up being a pretty useful print!
Soon, I received the actual gold and silver silk PLA we planned to use for the final pendant. I did a test print to make sure the materials looked good.
After sending this to Casey, he suggested we outset the letters rather than inset them. I made the modification in Fusion and then began printing the full size pendant and chain.
I was super pleased with how this was looking. I used concentric top layer infill to really emphasize the shape of the letters. It looked pretty cool!
The last detail to figure out was how to attach the pendant to the chain. I designed two halves of a triangular clip that snapped together and connected the two ends of the cuban chain to the pendant:
I printed the final pendant clip in gold PLA, snapped it into place, superglued it for peace of mind, and took an extremely corny picture of myself (you're welcome).
I had a bunch of leftover filament, so I decided to print a bunch of mini keychains as a surprise gift for the members. That way, the attendees of AOTW Wrapped had something to take home with them from the event.
Handoff / Mixtape design
At the time of completing this project, there were only three days until the event. I figured the shipping rates would be ridiculously expensive, so I instead planned to meet Casey at a gas station halfway between Austin and College Station for handoff.
This would have been a great plan if my alarm clock actually woke me up.
I'm still not entirely sure what happened, but I did not wake up on time for handoff, and I made poor Casey drive all the way to Paige, Texas for nothing. I think he ordered Whataburger though, so at least he got a meal out of it.
I felt terrible and apologized profusely, but I wasn't about to let any of my ADHD symptoms get in the way of completing the work. I drove all the way to College Station to hand the chain to him. He didn't seem to bothered about the mishap. Plus, he was pretty thrilled about the quality of the chain, AND the surprise keychains I gave him.
After handing off the pendant to Casey, he made the president of student radio wear it for a photoshoot. Then, he used one of the photos to design the official cover for the mixtape.
Casey is a very talented designer. He's a very talented person in general. I'm convinced he's an expert in every single one of his hobbies...
Reflection
I learned quite a bit through this project!
I always learn new things when working with clients of any kind. You truly can never learn enough about working with clients through freelance work.
I also learned not to print with Silk PLA if the print application requires some amount of durability. Over time, some of the keychains began to split layers. After some research, I found out that this was a common symptom of Bambu Silk PLA.
Departing from Album of the Week was a really difficult thing to do as I was graduating college. So many of my fondest memories came from the student org, whether through leading it, enjoying discussions, or spending time with my closest friends. Even though I'm no longer part of the org, I'll forever be honored to be a part of its legacy, and I savor every opportunity to jump back in and get involved. I'm really thankful Casey asked me to create something for them. I had a lot of fun putting this together.
A few days later, Album of the Week posted a recap of the event to the instagram page. I was really thrilled to see so many people get a kick out of the chain and ask to wear it for pictures. It made me really satisfied to see my work being enjoyed by the org I left behind! And better yet, there were no Instagram hate comments to be found :)