Here’s how to amp up your designing experience in quarantine.

Designing can get hard when spending time locked down. It shouldn’t be though. Should it?

The spread of coronavirus has seemingly cast us off on a strange island- our home- often underappreciated, less visited. The result cannot be more delusional or in other words, plain confusing. As much as there is a scarcity of privileges- lack of a social circle or the KFC burger that seems so far fetched now- the time is abundant.

Time. The world’s most scarce resource for designers is suddenly on sale. The irony is, we just cannot wrap our heads around this sudden switch in the resources available, and figure out a game plan.

Figuring

The idea is simple- plan out your design experience. When I say this I don’t mean it about the audience consuming the design but about the designer himself. How? Well, let’s suppose you have a project at hand, say a product that needs to be designed. How would you usually go about the design process? Frame an inspiration board?

Now let’s suppose you can experience your inspiration board. How would that impact your designing experience? Or, if you created hands-on prototypes or used colours you actually mixed with a paintbrush, will the result be any different? Is it more fulfilling or just unconventional in the eyes of a digital era? At a time of pandemic with death raging outside our doors, we artists are not running out of inspirations anytime soon. Surround yourself with the physical manifestations of your ideas. And there, you can experience your design!

Making

To create is to balance and struggle with endless patience. It is a trade the designers are well familiar with. Quarantine, however, changed a few things. We can no longer go out for our well-deserved breaks. Nor sip our coffee while participating in a heated(pun intended) design debate to keep our brains free from rust and running top-notch. But here is what you can do.

You can look at the brighter picture (the cliché bit!) and engage yourself in a range of personal development and design games (the actual bit). You can brainstorm and gather great ideas while listening to your radio. And you can educate yourself to be a better version of yourself. The designer kind.

Breaking

…off the screen. When it comes to designing, over-saturation and creative blocks can not only stagnate your working pace but prove to be detrimental in personal growth. We all are guilty of slipping off to the point of obsession with a project until it starts having a negative impact. The fact holds especially in times of quarantine when there are little distraction and plenty of time.

The bottom line? BREAK OFF. As much ironic as it sounds, breaks that are strategically planned can come to your rescue when you are trying to seek a quality design experience and a great result.

Like I said, creating a fulfilling design experience is simple. You are probably doing it wrong if you are rushing it, not experiencing it, or letting things go boring to the point of monotonicity. So the next time you work on a design project, take a step back, relax, and assess your work by the way you experience it. The result will be awesome!

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