Before I took the step to create my new website, a few months prior, I wanted to take my design work more serious and focus fully on that pursuit. I would create something from various aspects of the design field, such as posters, graffiti, flat illustration, typography. I would change every week, and start something in a new area, hoping to uncover what aspect of design I loved the most. It’s hard to give your utmost concentrative power and focus to an area that you are not really passionate about, you don’t want to dedicate your precious time devoted to something you don’t want to make a conviction to.
Through months, and I could possibly say years of searching for an area in design that I am passionate about, I finally found badges and insignias to be an area that I love. The confinement, the boundaries, the challenge to design to a confined space, the typographical elements. I found what I loved the most in design. I wanted to get better, immediately. Around the same time, I stumbled across an article on Medium, about how to create something every single day.
I instantly resonated with what I was reading. I began to create something, everyday, for the first half of the year, to test myself mentally, could I come up with a new design, a meaningful photograph, a drawing etc. Then it struck me. Why don’t I focus solely on insignia’s and badges and tie in my make something everyday mindset into this new-found love for the area of design? Jackpot.
By making something every day as a creative, your promoting a consistent mindset. One that you can then take into other aspects of your creative endeavours. You should create something that directly correlates to you passion or pursuit, otherwise, your just creating noise.
This creates deliberate practice with your passion, you’re getting better and what you want to do, creating work that you want to be known for, a back catalogue of designs that relate to your passion. Making something everyday creates constraints, forcing you to think creatively about generating something new. It allows you to become a practitioner, being actively engaged in your passion.
Your only going to get better by doing, not by reading about, not talking about, or looking up endless tutorials. When you start something and what to become better, you’re going to have to put in the hours, practice daily.
It’s incredibly satisfying to have figured out how to do something instead of reading about it, watching it online, or being told. The skill at discovering and problem solving tends to then come naturally as you find out more about your passion for yourself as you continue to make and show up. Just show up, it’s that simple, and it’s 50% of the battle.
An easy way to measure your practice is; when you go to bed at night, define what you have created that day, and then define what that is; a drawing? a photograph? a design? a piece of lettering? When you step away from the complete work, feel happy with it, feel accomplished.
Learn to let it go, this is a mindset in itself, but very important that you learn to do it. Picture it as, ‘This is just for practice, for my eyes only”, every single asset that you create doesn’t have to be show to people. Although hard, with the ease of putting work online and the psychological drug that is “Likes”, its hard to not show everyone whatever you do. Not everything needs to be online.
There is an argument to be made for Quality vs. Quantity. This is why I mentioned that not everything you create needs to be shared with people. But in regards the practice material you do create and what to share. Maintain high standards, and you will see you work grow exponentially, not in quantity, but in quality.
Only share the work you believe will uphold the greatest qualities of your name.
High standards x Making something everything = Growth in the quality of your work.
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