10 Prompts To Jump-Start Your Daily Design Practice
Let’s talk about my Daily Design Practice. This is a HUGE part of the way I work and create – I am an enormous proponent of beginning (or ending, but I begin) your day with a design practice and have done so for the past three years. Here’s what this routine looks like for me:
The first thing I do when I walk into my studio and sit down at my desk in the morning is open up an Illustrator file, set a timer (some days it’s five minutes, some days it’s an hour), and start designing.
On days when I only have a couple of minutes I might just play around with a few new fonts, and on days when I have more time I can get pretty deep into illustrating / designing. Some weeks I will work on the same project every day, some weeks I will do something totally new and different each day. There isn’t a ton of continuity in what the actual product is, but there is A LOT of continuity in terms of showing up every day and doing the damn thing.
I drop all of the files in a folder and some of them become my social media posts, some become or inspire client work, and others never see the light of day again.
Here’s why this is important.
Have you ever been flipping through a book, or scrolling on Pinterest, and thought – “Gosh, I would love to create something like that but I don’t even know where to start. How do you get that texture? How do you illustrate in that style? I see this in my head but it never turns out like that on my computer.”
Your daily design practice is when you develop these skills. When the pressure is off. When it’s not for a client project. When there isn’t a hot deadline looming. Then you can really DIG IN to what you want to create, mess up along the way, and then bring the skills you develop back to your client work.
It’s also critically important to “warm up” before your design day starts. It’s the same reason athletes warm up before going out on the field or court or course. You need to prepare yourself mentally and physically to perform the task at hand. You have to get in the right mindset. You need the muscle memory flowing. I would never just show up and walk to the first tee of a golf tournament cold. And I would never do that to my client work either. It deserves better!
Let’s get down to it – the prompts. Some of these are fairly open ended for a couple of reasons – one, it’s a stressful time. You need to go with the flow and do what feels right to you. A ton of rigidity is helping no one right now! And two – there are a lot of different types of designers who participated in my last challenge so I want to keep it as open ended as possible.
Ideas for what to make if you are feeling stuck … design a secondary mark, illustrate an icon, make a pattern, create a surface design mockup, design a hang tag, create a color palette, work in a different medium than you usually do. The primary objective is to follow your creative heart and see what feels right. Okay, let’s get started!
10 Design Prompts to Jump Start Your Daily Design Practice
1. Fruit – Apples, oranges, bananas, kiwi – you name it. Bring ‘em to life in a way that feels right to you!
2. Listen to a podcast – I mean REALLY listen, as in don’t try to do 16 other things at the same time – write down your favorite quote or series of words and set it in an old favorite typeface.
3. Create an illustration of your favorite things that are getting you through this newfound reality (cozy clothes, coffee, tea, journaling, meditation, takeout, more takeout…)
4. A vase of tulips (my friendliest flower) or daisies (if you love You’ve Got Mail, you’ll feel me)
5. Restaurant-related design. Could be a menu, collateral, business card, pattern, you name it.
6. Seek and find your new favorite typeface in Adobe Fonts.
7. Design with others in mind! Whatever you create – send it to your family and closest friends. Maybe it’s an uplifting mantra, maybe it’s an old family photo of your grandparents that you lay out in a unique way, maybe it’s an inside joke with your pals.
8. Texture play – wanting to incorporate grain into your posts? Curious about adding texture in AI without making your files so giant that they force CC to quit? Dig into some YouTube tutorials (or just play around!) and see what you can come up with.
9. Different Decade – do some research on design trends from a decade whose style you don’t usually work in (I love trying to design in an 80s aesthetic) and create something outside of your comfort zone.
10. Greenery – lean into the self-care vibe and create something with greenery in mind. Could mean literal greenery, or could be a nod to a “green” and clean / healthy industry.
Tag me @oliviaherrickdesign or use the hashtag #dailydesignpractice so I can see your brilliant work!
Stay safe and healthy!