36 Days Of Type – Experience and lessons learnt

Via Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium by ARVIND KUMAR

36 Days Of Type – Experience, lessons learnt and take aways

What is 36 days of type?

36 days of type is a design challenge where designers are challenged to design a letter or number each day, resulting an outcome of the ability to represent the same symbol from many different perspectives.

So, here is my experience and lessons that I have learnt in these 36 days.

My First thought

At first, I am not a fan of daily challenges, I am a big believer that a master piece takes its own time to evolve and it can’t be finished in a single day like sketches. But for the past four years this 36 days of type challenge grabbed my attention to a higher level since many of my inspirational designers participated in it. So this time I also decided to participate !!!

After making this decision the reality stuck me that it is very hard for me to create 36 good works in 36 days. So I decided to do 13 good designs for 36 days (ie.) creating 1 design for 3 days. But there is no time for the preparation since I came to know the challenge date only the day before the challenge. Only thing I decided was to make these designs as 3d graphical art since I didn’t touched this genre for a long time. After going through many #36daysoftype works, I planned to make a fresh take on type. ie., it should look like an ordinary artwork with type(alphabets or numbers) built in it, the type should not overrule it but at the same time it should be recognizable(“Iruku aanha illa” moment). As a admirer of isometric angles I decided my concept “Seeing the world from an aerial view”.

My Expe rience

First day was hard to decide to set the theme color, material, lighting, style, render settings for the whole challenge. But by god’s grace I got a visual idea by tweaking and playing with the software. As days went by I started to concentrate more on concept than visuals that thrilled me and playing guess games with the family and friends were fun. Some days were stressful and things like family functions, friend outing, IPL were like barrier to me, so I avoided everything and went about designing designing designing 😀 I thought its good for me I am adapting and changing my routine and pushing myself to the best to see my capability. Though its was physically tiring, I was mentally happie and motivated by the response. It is awesome to see design community working together across the globe and posting with same hashtags, appreciating other designs, getting motivation from how other fellow designers think creatively and executed their designs, giving feedback to yo ung designer and embracing it, felt like a family.

Here are my 36 days of type works posted on instagram

Check out the full project here

Leasons I learn:

This challenge taught me so many lessons and gave chances to apply them on coming days. Here are some

– Think different

First few days I melted the concept to fit into the type (like making a B shaped pond and C shaped building)but after a point I decided to think different. As a result of this I started to reject the ideas that come first and easy, because the same thought will rise to thousand others peeps. So I conditioned myself to think different. This cost me one hour for every type to get satisfied and move on with it. I design fonts like Aroly, Arona and Arexa, mockups, clay model design because most of the designers won’t do these stuffs.

Take away: Always doing something different will easily make us stand out !!!

– Time management

Family functions, friends outing, IPL, getting haircut seemed disturbance to me. So I avoided it and used my weekends effectively to prepare for the coming week days type. Only after sketching, I mo ved on to 3d software to avoid unnecessary iterations. I started to split the available time for modeling, setting light and rendering then hitting it one by one. During the render time, I started sketching the idea for the next type.

Take aways:

Prioritize your goals
Setting a short time goal and achieve it one by one
Don’t think that there is more time, time flies
Master the software and shortcuts

– Overcoming sleep

For me working on night is more effective to concentrate with no distractions. Everyday I get tired by 11pm, if I surpass it by any means I can be awake till 4am(Superpower). I drank more water to avoid side effects like eye burning, rapid hair fall.

“I have got a dream worth more than my sleep”

Take aways:

Don’t lie down and use the laptop
Snack and drink cof fee regularly
Listen to fast beat songs and comedy show audios
Be awake overnight only if you are working for your passion goals and not for binge watching serials. Know the side effects.

– Staying Grounded

After posting, I started getting genuine appreciation from my inspirational designers and I was in cloud nine and carried away with the feeling of achievement that eventually reduced my flow and affected the forthcoming work. So after that I just enjoyed the appreciation at that moment and kept aside then started to work for the next big thing. Above all that, others appreciation doesn’t matter its our satisfaction, fun, happiness and self evaluation that matters a lot. Always staying grounded helped me to mingle with peoples easily and appreciate them without any ego.

Take aways:

Don’t get carried away with the appreciations
Nothing is permanent.

– Every problem has a solution

I am stressed out and demotivated when I can’t able to figure out the concept for hours. Then I try to conclude that there is no other choice than making the type(alphabets or numbers) in road shape like “K” type(easier way). But my heart didn’t allowed me to do that instead I tried to push myself and started to believe that there is always an awesome idea or solution and I am on the way to it. So having faith and pushing myself to concentrate more, think different and reaching it helped me. After reaching it feels so simple 😛

Take aways:

There is always a solution.
Think different from many perspective.

– Consume more

To get the idea I kept my eyes wide open, observed everything and started to imagine how it will look in aerial view whether it connects to an alphabet or number. So I was continuously observing while traveling, sitting, walking etc. How they are made, how will I make it or replicate it. Everything is stored subconsciously and it helped me down the road. Watching a movie, reading an article, observing a person, listening to a music can spark a beautiful concept.

Take aways:

Imagination is Super power. Go into it, observe the details, fine tune it and recreate it.
Observe everything

– Bounce back

Sometimes while browsing for an idea I get carried away and land on youtube, facebook, 9gag etc for hours and waste time. Luckily I came across this “5 second rule by Mel Robbins”. It helped me to avoid wasting time on unwanted things and switching back to work without procrastinating. This saved a lot of time.

Take aways:

Accept your mistake and try to correct it.
Count 5..4..3..2..1..bounce back

– Hard work pays off

For types like “Q, S, Z, etc” I worked till 5am adding, removing, altering things and giving it the time to evolve. The feel and satisfaction I got after seeing the rendered output is awesome.I figured that the appreciation were more than the others.I worked hard on weekends without even sleeping to get free time on week days after my office hours.

“Let them sleep while you grind. Let them party while you work. The difference will show.”

Take away:

Work hard
Push your limits

– Taking breaks

Taking a coffee break always rejuvenates my mind and helps me to reset my thoughts when I am struck and makes me to think in other new perspectives. It also helps me to find out visual mistakes like saturation, alignment etc easily. Since I am being close to my design it makes me hard to take decisions between the options, at that times taking a break eased up the decision making.

Take aways:

Create checkpoints and take breaks to rejuvenate your mind.

That’s it !!! I am really proud that I have made it through till the end in this challenge. Check the full project here

Check out my works here

Instagram: www.instagram.com/arvindiroute
Behance: www.behance.net/ArvindiRoute
Dribbble: www.dribbble.com/Arvindiroute
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ArvindKumardesigns
Twitter: www.twitter.com/arvindlife

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36 Days Of Type – Experience and lessons learnt

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