In my previous post, I shared my experience from the shortest holiday home and I promised that I will tell you about a typical day in the life of a designer/concept developer (this is me if you are wondering). Since I am also still a student I am afraid my everyday life as a designer is not what it is supposed to be, but I will try to tell you a bit about my process of design and hopefully one day (if anyone shows interest) make another post describing how my work on projects for clients usually goes. 

I think this is the perfect time to write this post since right now it’s the end of the day, I have finished all my work and responsibilities and I also watched several videos about improving your lifestyle, being more efficient, and positive, which I want to try out as soon as possible.

Check it out – it is a really cool channel with awesome advice!

The video I watched was about Habits Of Effective People and I managed to get a lot of inspiration and good tips out of it so I highly recommend you give it a shot.

How does my day start?

Contrary to what the video says it’s good to do, I start my day with YouTube videos. I try to wake up as early as possible since I am most productive during the mornings and I like the feeling of being awake and alive early (let’s ignore all the struggle I go through before I get my lazy ass out of bed). Usually, that is around 8 am. I try to eat healthy now so I usually make banana pancakes, oatmeal with fruit or I just eat a fruit salad. Okay, sometimes I choose the dark side and make a sandwich or eat something sweet I admit. While I am having breakfast I am watching videos on YouTube (best case scenario – tutorials and useful videos, usually – entertainment videos and vlogs).

And then I am ready to start being productive. For two minutes.

The plan

One thing I am doing right (I think) is I make the plan for the day on the day before. This way I don’t waste my time and energy trying to figure out how to start my day during the morning and I already know what I should get done during the day. This helps me plan my time better and set realistic objectives for the next day after I see how I did on the present day.

How does the day go

*I will be telling you about a typical day when I don’t have classes and I can focus on my work, more specifically my design process*

Of course, how I proceed with my day depends on the plan I have made. But it is usually a combination of four main things:

• Reading and researching about new trends in my field of work – design, marketing, SEO, etc. (I do this first thing in the morning until lunch time, since as I mentioned, I am most focused and productive during that time)
  Some of the recent articles I found quite useful and interesting:
  Behance Guide for Design Trends in 2018
  Emerging SEO Trends for 2018
  A summary of the Business Model Navigation (Innovative Business Model Generation) book I mentioned in my last post – super useful and relevant for concept developers
• Doing something creative – design or concept development (after lunch until 5-6 pm – finishing the productive part of the day)
• Being physically active – going to the gym or doing exercise at home.
  I want to emphasize that I believe having enough physical activity a day is a must, especially when your job/hobby requires you to stay on a desk or in front of the computer for the majority of the day. This can lead to a lot of negative effects on the body and I am trying to take measures and include at least 1-1.5 hours of fitness of physical exercises at home to prevent my body from “getting rusty”.
• Of course, there is also time to relax – read a book or watch some series. This marks the end of the day, after which I define the plan for the next day.

The creative process

Okay, let’s get to the point of the article before I get carried away again. The major part of my day is practicing in my field of work – design. Whether it is a project I found in a freelance group, a contest I discovered for a logo, or a design I want to do for myself I try to include doing something creative in my day.

I have been doing some freelance and contest logo work recently, but I am not sure I am allowed to share it publicly yet, so I will describe the process of designing (more like illustrating) one of my independent ideas.

I usually follow the IDEO design thinking process when creating logos and illustrations since I find it most suitable for the job.

I will explain the process of creating the following illustration (not the best example, but the most recent one, which I documented appropriately).

Step 1

Since this is not a project for a client, I don’t have to read and analyze briefs and requirements. As soon as I have an idea about the illustration I want to create I start directly with inspiration gathering. For this particular drawing, I was inspired by Twenty One Pilots and their Emotional Roadshow opening act ending with the moral – Only Skeleton Bones Remain.

Powefull message. I am so excited for their upcoming music and art!

Another inspiration is the costumes the band used earlier in the years to depict the concept of skeleton bones.

This and some real skeleton images were the main inspiration gathering for the drawing. I have to admit a manga (manhwa – Korean manga, if I have to 100% accurate) I recently read also helped with the inspiration for this since I found the costume quite awesome and badass and decided to incorporate it in the drawing. The Breaker (Park Jin-Hwan and Jeon Geuk-Jin) – I highly recommend it btw.

Low-quality images I managed to find on Google, but trust me the artwork of the series is top-level.

Step 2

The second step is the sketching. I had the idea in my head – incorporate the skeleton costume in a visually appealing way. It cannot get more basic than that, but this is what I wanted to do so I started sketching it out.

I used the above images as reference and some images of a real skeleton. This is the rough sketch, which I refined in the next stage.

Step 3

Usually, the process of creating an illustration requires several sketches, not just one. This was a pretty much straightforward drawing, and I knew what kind of feeling, position, and elements I wanted in it so I just went ahead and developed the initial sketch. However, if it is a work for a client or more sophisticated illustration I produce at least five sketches and choose which one is the best one to develop. Often, I combine elements of several sketches in a new drawing and start developing the details on it.

You can notice that in the second picture I have started slightly erasing the lines of the pencil. I do this to get a better result when coloring and prevent pencil lines from staying visible under the colors and ruining the drawing. I erase gently, leaving just enough lines to see where I am supposed to color. Trust me this is a good approach especially if you are using watercolors or ink. Pencil lines can ruin the coloring easily.

Step 4

The next step is reflecting on and refining the drawing (this is actually done before erasing the lines of the pencil, but I forgot to take pictures of this). Getting cleaner lines, fixing details and mistakes in the drawing.

Step 5

And then comes the coloring. Watercolor, pencils, ink, markers, whatever it is the coloring is the most precise and delicate part of each drawing. It requires a lot of attention and focus on detail, it is fairly easy to make a small mistake, which will destroy the entire artwork.

For this one, I used a red pen and black ink. I love using mixed media and I believe it makes the drawing way more interesting and vibrant.

Step 6

Usually, the final step of my drawing process is to digitize the drawing. I haven’t yet done it with this one, but I will certainly get to it and tell you about the entire process of digital sketching, line cleaning, vectorizing and coloring the image.

What’s next?

This is the major part of my day – reading up on school-related articles and doing creative stuff. This wasn’t the best example I have of my process, but I will probably share a better one as soon as I can.

After that, I dedicate my time to physical activity and give myself some time to relax and do something to ease up.

Recent books I’ve read and recommend:

The Shining – Stephen King (don’t even dare to tell me you’ve seen the movie – it is absolute trash – The “here comes Johnny” bullshit) – Horror at it’s finest!

The Running Man – Stephen King – Interesting, slightly scary vision about the future by the king of horror – the inspiration behind The Hunger Games, but way better.

Legion – Brandon Sanderson – Fiction and fantasy, with a lot of twists and incredibly interesting main character. Worth the read (also consider Legion: Skin Deep – part 2 of the book)

The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams – Hillarious fantasy novel, which will make you think about a lot of important issues, but will certainly help you relax after a tiring day.

Some bonus sketches to end the blog

These are some test prints I did for stickers (on the wrong type of paper)

The most recent practice drawing I did (it’s on my Instagram, go check it out)

Ink drawing, digitized version as a sticker above

Anatomy and shading practice

Watercolor practice

And that’s about it. A typical day of mine, I hope you found it interesting to see the process of creating a simple design. I will most likely describe the process of a more complex project for a real client and also my process of creating a digital illustration sometime in the future. Thanks a lot for reading and stay tuned for more everyday life blogs, reviews, and who knows what else!

What about you? How does your typical day go?

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