Rediscovering a sense of play through a daily practice
I gave myself a project at the end of 2019: every day I would do a small design project. It wouldn’t be something too huge, just a modest practice to allow me to get back into experimenting with form, color, composition.
What came out of this was something that I ended up calling The Countdown. I started with the number 60, and comitted to working my way down to 1. Over that time I was able to make a lot of observations about how I worked, what brought me joy, and how to bring a sense of fun and discovery back into my craft.
I learned a lot of personal lessons from this project. One of the first things I did was to give myself some constraints. For example, all of the squares needed to be the same size. All of the numbers needed to be hand-built— no fonts. And it needed to be done in a day. I’ll admit that I broke that last rule once or twice, but for the most part these were quick sketches.
A few lessons and observations
Sometimes they come easily, sometimes much more slowly. You never really know until you sit down and start doing the work.
Trust that you will find something somewhere. If you’re feeling frustrated or feel like you’re circling, stop. It’s amazing what a little perspective will bring.
Some days there just isn’t the time, that’s okay. Sometimes there’s time for more than one. Don’t try to make the day into something it’s not.
Create some basic constraints and stick to them. For this one I picked a common artboard size, the numbers themselves (no Roman numerals, spelled-out numbers, etc), and the sequence itself.
Recognizing when you’re done: it can be tempting to keep picking at something, but it’s important to be able to draw a line under something and call it finished.
Some ideas just don’t have legs. Don’t waste your time trying to beat it into submission if it isn’t going anywhere. After you ditch it and start on a different direction you’ll be wondering why you didn’t do it sooner.
You’ll be tempted to gravitate toward what you know works. Fight it. Push yourself to try something different.
They don’t all have to be masterpieces.
Sometimes your approach might work better on a different day. Recognize that, and stow it away as a present for your future self.
No amount of ornamentation will save a weak concept. Get the skeleton in place before you start adding tattoos.
Embrace the paradox that you are essentially just drawing the same ten shapes over and over again. You are also exploring a unique relationship between two shapes and creating something new each time.
It’s okay to try out a different approach just because you want the technical challenge.
Not knowing where you are can be scary but exhilarating. Don’t panic, keep exploring. Trust that you will know the right direction when you find it, not before.
Actively experiment with subtraction. If you’re not sure if some element of your design is working, get rid of it.
Embrace feeling lost in the process.
Listen to that voice that’s telling you whether you can do better. Sometimes you can. Sometimes it’s done.
Doing one number at a time was very different. The challenge before was to look for the relationship between two numbers in a way that transformed them into something greater. A single number is a different challenge.
