My 365 Day Project Will Die Soon
Mordid title: check.
On my birthday, October 1st I commited to the vague plan of "making something cool" each day for the next 365 days. Like any plan it was a product of my current situation and mindset. I was feeling reawakened by design, and felt that I hadn't been myself the last year (I hadn't been regularly creating). I was excited, enthused, a bit unhappy at work and so I had a plan to reinvigorate my creativity and that of anyone who was interested (my great friend India was a key supporter).
Now creating every day is pretty normal; sometimes a chore but fortunately more often a delight (yeah I said designing is sometimes a chore...the obligation can be tiring). But soon its all going to 'end'. I won't HAVE to create each day after September 30th. Everything must come to an end, but so far it hasn't troubled me.
What have I enjoyed?
The obvious one is that I will have made a lot of cool shit. Sure there was some duds (that's life) but I made some really cool stuff. Before I was known for iconography but mostly had a single style. Now I feel like an illustrator as well as a designer; I've gotten better and my style is more developed and varied. I have a body of work that can prove the incremental weekly gains.
That's a win. I got my website set up at the start of the year and with #Create365 I've helped flesh it out and show off the type of creative I am and want to be. When I look back I get a sense of 'woah'.
The @lemonpickledesigns channel has over 600 posts, which is pretty damn cool; it's great to see the 'proof' of the time we put into the project. Throughout the year of creation I've taken on some pretty awesome challenges. I did 2 months of daily (and exhausting) animation. I did 36daysoftype and 21palettechallenge. I hope there will be more of these challenges in the future.
We had a number of regular followers who would often like the work and post occasional comments. I rarely called these people out but I always recognised them. It was nice having a group of solid supporters. To be worth a space in someone's feed is a nice feeling!
What was shit?
The worst part was perhaps the days when I was really demotivated. The expectation that I MUST create would overrule me and I would get down to it. When you get back from work at 9pm, and have to eat and sort things out for tomorrow then make a thing. Some days I was over it…but I did it 99% of the time…somehow.
Creative block; what else. That's never fun. Neither was making a dud. Some days life was too crazy, or my effort didn't seem to amount to much and I would upload something ‘average’. Yet I was treating each day as part of the experiment; I wasn't trying to impress anyone and so some days I would upload something that didn't set the world on fire (we've all been there).
Another negative is that the Instagram didn't achieve worldwide recognition...me, India, Tommy and Krupa are kinda unknowns. But I never expected that to happen. Different contributors and ever changing styles meant that we were always 'upsetting' our audience. I think first and foremost you must create for yourself and anything else is an unexpected bonus. If you create for yourself; how can you be disappointed? And secretly I knew I wasn’t trying to become a popular insta designer - I couldn’t be F****d to do all the bullshit associated with it; and surprise, surprise it didn’t happen.
What have I learned?
I've learned...that I need a break (bahahaha).
I think I've realised how much fun it is doing design challenges with others; and how that kind of collaboration can really push you to make cool stuff. So one-off collaboration of multi-week creation challenges is something I'll definitely revisit. I'd like to do something a bit different mind - maybe reach out to some instagram designers and propose collaboration. In fact doing this with photographers would be great too (as I like photography).
In all seriousness; I'm looking forwards to a break from daily creation. I might do other things. I might write more. I might do online courses and I hope to still create at least weekly (maybe less things, but each a little more in depth). I might even have a dearth of regular creation but I proved that I can always come back to it.
After periods of growth I think it's good to have a period of rest. I'm looking forwards to recharging and gaining a better idea of what challenges I should do next. I believe that the more creativity you use, the more you have.
Phew. Just 6 more days to go.
Did I create everyday? Nah. It would be nice to claim I managed it but life is really crazy at times and there were probably a dozen times when I had to catch up on other days, but missing a day was the exception. In the future I’d like to work on ‘bigger’ more complex designs and not always be committed to forcing myself to make in a 30-60 minute window.
This is Dan, last survivor of the lemonpicklesdesign challenge. Sign off.
