FOREWORD
Generativemasks launched back in August of 2021. A collection stemming from Shunsuke Takawo’s daily coding sessions, a portfolio of work built up over years of daily experimentation with generative art since 2015, Generativemasks has marked its place in NFT history in 2021. Since then, we’ve been blessed with a core group of gen art enthusiasts, and are looking to become more communal moving forward.
Enter Roadmap 2.0.
PHILOSOPHY
The central principles behind the project are as follows:
- Celebrate generative art
- Provide greater value to our holders
- Engage the Generativemasks family
We want to advance the culture of generative art, give spotlight to Japanese creators, and share the works with the world. We want Generativemasks to become a place where generative art creators, collectors and enthusiasts can gather and support each other.
We also want to provide accessibility to anyone who wants to join our community and foster a culture of inclusivity and positive vibes.
Everything starts with the community.
The Generativemasks Community Grant
We will be injecting $100,000 USD into the creation of a Community Grant (Liquidity Pool), funded from the mint funds and secondary royalties, in order to execute our roadmap 2.0. The Community Grant will primarily serve to reward community members who can i) foster the creation of new art, and ii) otherwise contribute to community engagement.
There is something for everyone at Generativemasks.
a) Creation of New Art
There will be weekly contests held for a total of $600 USD allotted to artists of all types, who contribute their creations to the Generativemasks community on Discord.
i) Original Art
Artists can submit their original art pieces that take inspiration from Generativemasks. Although we are a generative art-centric community, the submissions do not necessarily have to be generative art. Feel free to let your creativity take over, and show the world what derivatives you come up with.
ii) Graphic Design
Graphic designers can take something that already exists, give their unique Generativemasks spin on it, and submit their creations. It can be another NFT, photograph, brand logo, movie poster, etc. - the possibilities are truly infinite. Remix Generativemasks into the world.
iii) Submission Categories and Rewards
There are four submission categories. Holders can apply to all four, while non-holders are restricted to the non-holder specific categories.
Holder x Original Art; $100 USD
Holder x Graphic Design; $100 USD
Non-Holder x Original Art; $50 USD
Non-Holder x Graphic Design; $50 USD
b) Community Engagement
Community members who contribute in non-artistic ways to our Discord will be rewarded. There are a number of ways to participate, as we are aiming to be as inclusive as possible.
As we progress, we will adjust the types of activities, the frequency with which they are hosted, and the rewards are given out. Through trial and error and reception of community feedback, we believe we can develop a system that rewards our family the Generativemasks way.
We are open to non-holder participation, as we want to value inclusivity. At the same time, our holders remain our top priority and will be treated as such. As of launch, our family can earn weekly rewards by participating in the following categories:
i) Quizzes
Quizzes consisting of trivia questions about Generativemasks will be hosted on Kahoot, a popular online quiz platform. Players are rewarded for correct answers and their quickness.
ii) Discord Games
Fan favorites like Rumble Royale and Guess the Number will be hosted in the Generativemasks Discord server.
iii) Daily Check-In and Gold Contributors
We’re turning the #gm-ga-ge-gn channel into a daily check-in channel with a 6-hour slow mode. It will be the only channel where XP can be earned. The range of XP earned will be RNG dependent and the leaderboard will be reset on a weekly basis.
Those who are in the upper echelon in the leaderboard that are also positive contributors to our community will be handpicked by Takawo and the Generativemasks team for rewards, and assigned the Gold role. This role will have special perks in the future!
We define positive contribution as any of the following:
- Actively celebrating art, and voicing one’s thoughts and opinions
- Sharing news about art
- Helping and welcoming others
- Spreading genuine and positive vibes
- Promotion of Generativemasks
iv) Weekly Reward Allocation
Generativemasks Quiz: 100/week
Discord Games: 100/week
Gold Contributor: 200/week
Project Reboot
We will be launching a 4 week Project Reboot in late April. Intended to announce to the world about the resurgence of Generativemasks, it will kickstart our journey toward building an inclusive community of art enthusiasts.
i) Partnership with HUG
We have partnered with HUG, an NFT accelerator founded by Randi Zuckerberg to expand our reach in conjunction with the Project Reboot. As the first Japanese project onboarding the accelerator, we're aligned with the vision of inclusivity in the NFT space that HUG promotes. It also has a nice track record of past success in the NFT field, most notably with their Boss Beauties partnership.
We'll regularly be featured on their promotional channels via Twitter and Discord to start, with bigger-scale crossovers in the future. We're hoping that this will open up a lot of doors for us, and have high hopes for everything that lies ahead. Through this partnership, we have secured an appearance on Rug Radio, the premier NFT Twitter Space with a massive reach of 80,000+ followers. Future opportunities will come, and we will work closely in tandem with HUG to grow our brand.
ii) Greater rewards for community participation
We are increasing the rewards for community participation for the duration of the Reboot.
Generativemasks Quiz: 100/week → 150/week
Discord Games: 100/week → 150/week
Gold Contributor: 200/week → 300/week
iii) Artist Invite Contest
We are an inclusive art-centric community, so we are always looking to add new artists to the mix. Our family members can generate their unique invite link (instructions at #bot-commands channel), invite artists, and be entered for a chance to win rewards including a Generativemasks NFT.
To qualify as an artist, the invitee must:
-
have a publicly viewable portfolio of their work - i.e. personal website, Instagram, DeviantArt
or
-
show proof of 5+ art submissions (fan art contest etc) in other NFT communities
Generativemasks NFTs will be awarded to the winning pair. Depending on the number of entries, additional winners may be selected.
Raffle entry will be completed after the artist completes at least one submission into the weekly derivative contests during the Project Reboot. Tentatively, we plan to host a raffle at the end of the Reboot, and rewards will be given out to both the inviter and the invited artist.
iv) Other Activities
We will organize Twitter raids, Meme Contests, and other activities during the Project Reboot. Participants have a chance at winning prizes for most, if not all of these events.
Tools / Education / Scholarship
We want to advance the culture of generative art forward. In doing so, we want to cater to both the experts and the novices.
a) Tools
Our past community members have created some amazing tools that can take Gen Art appreciation to a new level. Moving forward, we will be rewarding members who can provide similar tools.
b) Education and Scholarship
We want to encourage more people to become interested in creative coding. So we would like to provide the financial support for learning creative coding and create an environment that allows people to be fully focused on their creations.
Support
From launch until April 2022, we have supported 5 different organizations, 4 of which have already received their support (Processing Foundation・Processing Community Japan・OpenProcessing・Coolors). We are currently working with the last remaining one, NEORT. Moving forward, we will shift from supporting Japan Generative Art Foundation to directly supporting Generative Artists and their activities.
Physical Masks And Other Merch
Physical masks will carry over from our roadmap 1.0. Once a manufacturer has been secured, we will conduct an interest check and start the merchandising. If there is sufficient demand for other merch requests, it will be taken into consideration.
Collaborations And Marketing
Our partnership with HUG will open many new doors for future collaborations with external parties. Moving forward, we will try to involve ourselves in as many outside collaborations as we can in order to raise our brand awareness.
Future Funding for The Community Grant
Unlike staking and passive income ecosystems, we are not at risk of having our pool being drained. While we do not currently have a hard number for the percentage of secondary royalties diverted back into the grant pool, the sustainability of the community grant is a top priority.
In the short term, we will analyze the community grant system on a weekly basis to evaluate its effectiveness. We will also be continuously taking feedback from our community and implementing ideas and suggestions moving forward. After fine-tuning the system for long-term sustainability, we will officially announce details on the usage of secondary royalties, tentatively scheduled for Q3 2022.
In Closing
Generative art, a once niche genre, has exploded in popularity in recent times. We are extremely blessed to have found relative early success, and now consider ourselves an OG gen art collection in the NFT world. We are certain that as time passes and NFTs evolve, so will generative art.
We are aiming to be a flagbearer ushering in the new era. As we start to execute our new roadmap, we hope that you will join us in making Generativemasks into an inclusive and vibrant community. We will always be open to feedback and adjust accordingly. After all, roadmaps are just that: roadmaps.
But everything starts with the community.
