minimalism

In a few days, I’ll be leaving Austin, TX & my husband behind to embark on a little over two month journey to Lithuania, India & Sweden. Whether it’s half way across the globe or just a few states away these journeys have become mandatory to my survival both personally & professionally. They allow me to break out of the daily routine & experience life from a different perspective. For the entire journey I will live out of a carry-on bag with clothes for all climates & a Belkin Slim laptop backpack filled with technological gadgets. This aids in my minimalist mission to understand what I really need to get by on a day to day basis as well as, helps me to determine what it is that is important in life & key to being happy.

You may be thinking, so what does this have to do with being a designer? Well, it touches upon a key principle to becoming a great designer, namely breaking out of your comfort zone & trying something new. Good designers recycle other designer’s ideas & principles to make them their own whereas, great designers create ideas & principles that inspire others to follow in their footsteps. After all imitation is the highest form of flattery, is it not?

Creating an awesome design is much like packing for a two month journey in a carry-on bag. You have to be able to bust through all the fluff & distill the elements to their very essence while making sure all vital elements are covered. Less is more.

My intention for this journey is to be as present as possible, while documenting the experience through writing, drawing & photography. I want to be fully immersed in the different cultures and surroundings I find myself in & bring that back with me to share with the world. The goal in this being that I will come back with fresh eyes & ideas to be the best person & designer I can possibly be.

One wise person told me that,

“the key to making rapid advancement is to always stay one step outside of your comfort zone, then when you get comfortable there, take another step.”

So, I encourage everyone to throw caution to the wind & step outside of your comfort zone as a regular function. All the logistics of my trip are loosely arranged though I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to afford this journey & the bills back home, nor am I sure of my transportation or accommodation in said places or if I’ll be able to find a Nano Lithuanian Sim card for my iPhone 5 when I land in Vilnius, Lithuania & thus be able to contact the lovely people in Kaunas who will be picking me up from the train station. Nonetheless, depending upon the Universe is in & of itself a beautiful way to step outside of your micro-managing comfort zone & let the serendipity flow.

Let Go & Seize the Day!

In order to be good at anything, you have to always be striving for improvement. As one wise person once told me, the key to rapid advancement is to always push yourself just beyond your comfort zone, then once you get comfortable there give yourself another nudge. A good designer is always looking for fresh designs & new material to get their creative juices flowing. A quick google on “how to become a better graphic designer” yields lists of things like, buying books, keeping print design pieces, sketching in sketchbooks, etc. To a minimalist this breaks the core principle of keeping it simple & minimizing the amount of material objects we surround ourselves with. That being the case I have compiled a list of tips on how to become a great designer & still be a good minimalist.

 

Visit your local bookstore or library. 

Instead of purchasing all these great design books that are typically replaced by the next edition within a year, find a bookstore or even library near you that has an up-to-date selection of the latest design books. Colleges/ Universities which have a Graphic Design or Fine Arts program are typically great candidates for having a well stocked, current selection of design books/ magazines. Also many of the larger bookstores like Barnes & Nobles have wonderful selections on hand as well as comfortable places to read them. Reap the benefits of having books, without having them.

Find something inspiring. Take a picture.

If you’re in the design biz, there’s a 99% chance you have a smartphone with a relatively decent camera. Find something inspirational in your library/ book store safari or that amazing package design in the local food co-op. Take a picture & e-mail it to yourself or use iCloud.

Full Sketchbooks/ Journals

I have a Wacom Intous tablet which I love but, there’s just something about the feeling of pen to paper, the rawness of it with the inability to erase that is irreplaceable. If you’re like me, an avid sketcher, quickly you’ll find sketchbooks & journals being filled, loose papers & napkins piling up with spur of the moment inspirations. You’ve poured your heart out on the paper & you know just one day, this idea will be useful, but your minimalist conscience says yeah right, put it in the rubbish bin already. How to solve this dilemma? Scan it in & create a combined pdf. This way you’ll retain the original energy of the sketches as well as retain the order. This being the case make sure you have a killer backup system in place in case of disasters.

Get connected

Use the internet for inspiration there is a ton of it. Yes this is simple but, an effective way at obtaining inspiration without acquiring stuff. Go to meetups, join forums, utilize social networking to its fullest potential.

Bookmark & Share

Since you’ve spent hours on end scouring the web for quality content, share the wealth. Join a bookmark sharing service like delicious & connect with others. Give more & get more.

This is by no means a comprehensive list, so feel free to add more suggestions in comments below & stay tuned for part 2…