Things I learnt doing my own 100 day project
Make a plan, and then some
When I got the idea to make something for a X number of days, I had a few things to define. First off, what the goal is. For me, it was more of a matter of commitment and grit than a matter of improving my technique (although I’d get some of it as a natural result). Something that would be recurring, something I had to do for a longer period of time. As mentioned before, it had to be challenging enough. But what is a good length, 1 month? 2 months? 1 year?
Finding the level is not a trivial thing, but ultimately it is an arbitrary number I had to set.
100 sounded good, an important enough number to feel like something I should take seriously.
Once that was decided, then it was a matter of what to actually do. Ever since I was a kid, I had a strong interest for drawing, building stuff and solving problems. Most of my days I solve problems, that’s what being a designer is about. But very rarely I do illustrations where the goal is purely aesthetic or decorative.
A challenge in creating illustrations could be fun and teach me something, and as a bonus I would get even more proficient with my day to day tool, Sketch.
I got a plan then, 100 days of illustrations made in Sketch. “Great, let’s get going then”. Not so fast!
I needed a theme, a red thread to keep these 100 illustrations together. Being once upon a time an Industrial Design student, I could not help but think that I should draw a set of timeless products. I eventually landed on the definition of “iconic”. It had to be design pieces that people would recognize. If not all of them, a good part of it.
So I started writing down a list of all the products I could think fitted the definition. After about 30, I decided to both look online and go to the local library to get inspiration on what the other 70 could be. I made a list of all the products I wanted to draw, about 115, to get some room for later decisions. It should be simple illustrations, with flat perspective and flat colors.
There, my plan was in place: Illustrate 100 iconic products in 100 days.
