100 Days Project: Key Lessons
I took on the 100 Day Project during a very busy time — working full time, selling a home, buying a home, training for a marathon, getting married, working on several freelance design projects, and making the best of a long distance relationship with monthly trips to Philadelphia.
Why?
I’m the kind of person who needs structure and a schedule and I’ll get it done. When there’s less to do, things take more time. I took on this project with the full intention to address two weaknesses turned to goals:
Be more efficient.
I tend to overthink and bleed time into things rather than putting it down and coming back. The challenge was to make stuff fast and move on. If I don’t like something, I tend to fish around in the file or overwork something. By simply putting it down, it would free up for another idea that might be better. Maybe I’d come back later, maybe I wouldn’t.
Show up.
It’s easy for me to show up when things are exciting, but day after day, can I do this, even when I really don’t feel like it? I always bow out when the going gets tough. Could I train myself to suck it up and learn to enjoy the day-to-day?
I think my goals were achieved, because they surfaced in lessons learned. Following are four major takeaways from this challenge, although there are several more that I could write about…
1. Keep moving.
While there was no real rhyme or reason to achieving strong poster study results, some favorites took 1 minute to make, and some took 30 minutes. The lesson here? While it is good to spend time wandering and exploring, spending time on an idea that you’re ’stuck’ on or feels forced never turns into anything—or anything good in the moment. Put it down, and come back if it nags you.
Sometimes it flows and sometimes it doesn’t, regardless of years of experience and how ‘good’ you might be (correct me if I’m wrong and you’re reading this; I’d love to hear how you always get things to flow). Often, it’s as simple as getting out of your own way. Developing methods for that is more important than trying to force something in the moment. I like to run or ride my mountain bike in the woods. Things just start flowing in that space for me.
Lesson = Stuck? Put it down and move on, or come back to it later if you feel inspired rather than overwork the file or idea and waste time. This will save SO much time and frustration and you might have more ideas in a more efficient way.
2. Constraints win.
I didn’t want to just ‘design a poster’ for 100 days. Could you imagine how DAUNTING that would be? Is it illustrative, photographic, typographic? What is the topic or subject? Does it take after a movie or book or pop culture?… you get the idea. I kept it simple by creating limitations.
—A limited color palette (which I am thoroughly sick of I might admit, so I’ll be taking a break on that one) made the whole set feel cohesive and saved me from taking the time to create a new palette at each take.
— I also kept it simple in terms of choosing to use a design program that I am very proficient in (in this case, Adobe Illustrator). The goal wasn’t to learn new tech for this 100 day take, but to see if I could commit to the simple task of making a poster with the constraints, and have fun doing it. Learning a program on the fly would likely have resulted in frustration and too much time committed, leaving me to abandon the challenge.
— I chose to focus on purely formal studies, using a common grid, and focusing on point, line, and plane.
Believe it or not, the 100 day project still felt daunting at times, even with these constraints. But it got easier over time and became a part of my daily routine. I eventually started ’seeing’ things in my everyday life and dreams that inspired some of the studies. I eventually looked forward to it!
Lesson = Even if a project is open-ended, make up rules or constraints so that you can explore specific and different sets of limitations as you come up with ideas. It will help you feel less overwhelmed and avoid the feeling that you’re ’swimming’ around for ideas where nothing is sticking.
3. Wanting results, results in nothing.
Ever envy an Olympic gold medalist? Or for designers who are reading this, ever envy a fellow student or pro for making such ‘cool’ work? How’d they do that? How are they SO GOOD! I certainly have these thoughts.
Guess what—we’re coveting the wrong thing. The satisfaction of finishing the 100 days challenge came when I made my final post. Was the 100th poster the best? No way—as a matter of fact I’m not in love with it at all. But how did I feel the best about posting the 100th study? It felt amazing! I mean — primarily because I was finished and not sure I will ever posting 100 posters again (but maybe?). The satisfaction of reaching my goal and going through all of the little ups and downs, highs and lows, and nagging reminders to get it done each day were worth it. I learned to enjoy ‘poster’ time each day. It became a few minutes of meditation and expression for me. I never put pressure on making something ‘perfect’ or ‘good’ or ‘right’, but just wen through the process. Some of them stink. Some of them I might make into prints or paintings eventually. It was the showing up, the process, and the small takeaways that made this project worthwhile.
Lesson = It’s not the award that matters, it’s the process—the highs and lows, doubts and fears—that no one sees that make something rewarding and help us grow as humans and practitioners. Do the work, period.
4. Avoid the noise.
While we can try to objectify things as much as possible, at the end of the day we all have different taste.
This might have to do with the Instagram algorithm or something like that, but a few of my personal favorite studies were the least liked. On the contrary, a few studies that I slapped together were fan favorites. ...If I even have ‘fans’?? Maybe we call them ’supportive colleague, student, and client favorites’ instead.
Lesson = Avoid the noise. Don’t worry about what people think, and don’t try to be all things to all people. It will dilute your ideas. Focus on the project goals, who you’re designing for, and the problem you’re trying to solve. Of course feedback and input is important, but don’t overthink it, especially early on.
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That was a wordy writeup in hope that perhaps you can apply some of the advice I’ve shared, and it’s my way of saying thanks for following along. If you have any favorite posters, I’d love to hear! You can view the full 100 days project posts on my instagram here: @limbic.studio.
