Design Something (Almost) Every Day

January 22, 2010

In December, I read Jad Limcaco’s article, Design Something Every Day. He points out the reality that every designer wants to get better at what he or she does. He suggests spending less time surfing and reading what other people have written and spend more time designing and creating new things.

The challenge he laid down was to take time each day to practice your design skills by actually designing something. His challenge was to try this every day for a year. What I really liked about the article is that Jad gave some very practical advice on how to get started.

He suggested just setting aside 20 to 30 minutes a day to practice. To me, this is very do-able. It does not have to be a polished design. I even had the idea that I could work on something a little bit each day.

I like the idea of Jad’s challenge. When I was younger, I practiced the trumpet each day to get better. I think I spent 30 minutes a day with my trumpet. I also saw how practice made me athlete in a variety of sports that I played.

Why not take 20-30 minutes to work on a design idea?

I have started to practice my design. I have not been able to do it everyday but I am making progress. I decided to post my creations on Tumblr as a way of keeping myself accountable. Typography has been the theme running through my designs this month.

Are you up for the challenge?

Maybe just try it for a month? Or like me, just try it as often as you can.

Note: If you like this, you might also want to read my post, Great Designers Steal Practice. It was inspired by several posts by Cameron Moll and other reading I was doing at the time. I had a couple other ideas on how to practice design including wireframing other people’s designs to learn from them and trying to recreate other people’s work as a means to practice (not as design theft but as practice).