A TED talk by Emma Rogan inspired me to take a little challenge: come up with an exercise and do it over and over during a set period of time. I decided to draw a new pocket for 50 days to arrive at a portfolio I could reference in my future design work. And what a fantastic experience!
Creativity seems to flourish within constraints. Having to repeat the same task daily forced me to go past the initial idea, to examine shapes, finishes, treatments. The pockets, primarily for a front of a shirt or a back of pants, sometimes came easily to me. In a minute, my challenge would be done. Other times, I stared at the blank sheet of paper for a bit, or I even had to walk away and do something else, before an idea would come up.
Have you ever done anything like this?