Into The Lab: Masked On Buttons

Welcome to another edition of Into The Lab, our creative, cross-chain movement to celebrate creativity in all shapes and forms; whether it’s art, storytelling, community building, or technological innovation!

For today’s episode, we’d like to welcome our friends from Masked on Buttons, A collaborative, community-forward project on Cardano! We’re excited to have them as part of The Lab for our second drop, so stick around until the end to learn more about where they come from and where the project is going!

Welcome everyone, so first things first. Could you give us a brief introduction to what Masked on Buttons is all about?

Hey! Sure, so Masked on Buttons is a series of art collections, featuring strangely colored button eyed characters wearing face masks. Our collection started from PFPs, but gradually grew into animations with original music and community-drive lore stemming from activities and creative excercises!

Aside from the art and lore, we’re also constantly working towards new utilities for our holders! In fact, we recently launched our Sowing Machine System, which serves as a vehicle to streamline benefits such as whitelist spots and giveaways to our community based on the quantity and quality of their holdings.

We’re all about this Community Lore Building. Getting all these different perspectives and creative juices flowing sounds like a blast! What would you say excites you more about your project and its future?

Well, months after launching in Cardano, we’re still excited to see all our community has to offer in terms of lore building and project building as a whole!

What excites us the most it to see the day, perhaps after the bear market, where all our hard work, commitment, and passion as a team will finally pay off in benefit for our holders and supporters!

I have no doubt in my mind that that will be the case. It seems like you have a solid community, so I look forward to seeing Mask on Buttons evolve! Speaking of, how do you keep pushing your project forward?

One way we push our project forward is through the creation and implementation of new utilities. We recently developed the Sowing Machine System to streamline benefits to our community and, of course, we have other utilities in mind such as NFT staking!

On top of that, we’re also looking forward to pushing our art and creativity forward through the creation of a MOB graphic novel in the future!

I’m really looking forward to that! While on the topic of creativity, The Lab is all about celebrating it in all its shapes and forms. So, what would you say inspires you to create?

Basically, the idea behind Masked on Buttons when we first launched in September 2021 was inspired by the societal conditions during the pandemic.

However, moving forward we believe it is now the community and the universe that has been created within the project that inspires us to continue creating and innovating for Masked on Buttons!

That is so cool and definitely relatable. Do you have any tips for aspiring creatives?

Well, yes! Not everything is yet written or created under the sun, and there are masterpieces yet to be created and seen by the public. So yes, just keep on creating!

I would also like to add that inspiration can really come from anywhere and can strike at anytime. You can be inspired by the people around you, your environment, your experiences, the past, and even possible futures to come . Those can all bring forth inspiration.

Yeah, absolutely! Listening to your intuition and paying attention to your surroundings is a great way to get inspiration! Now, we’ve been wondering about this since we started our conversation, do you have any favorite NFTs & NFT projects?

Well, yes! As a team we have several projects we particularily enjoy:

Spacebudz is one of our favorite collections and creators in the space, they’re very inspiring and have helped a lot of creators in the beginning! Aside from them…

Lucky Nekkos have a great community, it’s always fun to go to their discord server.

EC Photo is a cool concept that turns photos into NFTs!

Happy Hoppers is such a cute and fun project.

I really enjoy how the artist behind Overexposed creates her work.

I actually like the NFTs from Fort Gotten. I remember talking at NFT Con about the awesome work with the backgrounds and how when you collect certain 4 backgrounds you can connect them with each other. Also, when I was reading your lore I was thinking… “this is something from “The Lord of the Flies!”

Those are some great projects and we’re flattered to be among them! We’re super happy to hear you can relate to our story and the lore behind our inner kidz. Speaking of which, we’d love to leave you with one last question: what would you tell your inner kid if you had the chance?

A few things actually!

First off, I would tell my inner kid to hold on to the fanciful, ludicrous ideas that adults tell you to stop thinking about because we’re now in a time where creativity and possibilities are encouraged more than they were before. Those ideas have a place and they can and will amount to something in your future.

Additionally, I would tell them to just have fun and explore more! As you grow older, things become strict. You’re constantly worrying about the repercussion of things and it somehow restricts your creative side. Enjoy the freedom, and the creativity, and get out there and explore more.

Lastly, I’d like to remind my inner kid that she can still do things that she used to love; even the simplest things like watching anime and playing, because that’s the stuff I actually enjoy but don’t have much time to do them now.

These are all great! These are great reminders for anyone reading to be true to your inner kid! It’s never too late to reconnect with your creative and inevitably curious side!

Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us! We’re really looking forward to The Lab’s second collection featuring Masked on Buttons, dropping on July 8th!

Before we leave you, we’d like to remind you that tomorrow (July 6th) we’ll be hosting a Twitter Space with our MoB friends and co-hosted by Nighth₳wke at 7 p.m. UTC.

Hope to see you all there!