I'm almost done with the first draft of the 80 Works book—which includes design solutions for almost 80 challenges. I say almost because there are four challenges that have been attacked by a number of designers... but it has fought the majority of them to a dead standstill.
Can you help me solve these challenges? It would be a great help, as I'd really like to promote more of the amazing talents that are out there in the design community.
And thank you, in advance, if you'd like to participate. Contact me at dksherwin at msn dot com if you want to take one of the following design problems on and potentially get your solution into my upcoming book from HOW Design Press.*
* Disclaimer: While I'd love to give everyone involved unlimited time to work on these projects, having extra time really doesn't help—and has led many designers to ruin in attempting these problems. So from the date of this posting (July 12), I am allowing two weeks for anyone on the Internet to take a crack at these projects. This means that all solutions must be in to me by July 26th at 12 midnight PST.
The Game of Sustainability
Paper or plastic? Glass or aluminum? Eat local or buy foreign? When we are asked to make these kinds of decisions, the consequences of our actions are difficult to apprehend.
Take purchasing asparagus. You may be buying locally grown asparagus that was raised using hydroponics—which consumes power and water from your local utilities and watershed. Upon maturity, those vegetables were then driven 100 miles to your farmer’s market in a gasoline-powered truck and sold for a premium. Meanwhile, the delicious asparagus tips at your supermarket—flown to you from Argentina on a carbon-offset flight—were sun-grown, watered from a local river, certified by a third-party to be produced sans pesticides, and processed in a wind-powered factory equipped with a fleet of biodiesel vehicles.
From these descriptions, any person would be hard-pressed to decide which asparagus was more or less sustainable. When it comes to issues of sustainability, there are few easy choices.
Now, imagine trying to describe the complexities of sustainability to a child. How could they even begin to comprehend the impact of their actions on the world? In the following challenge, you’ll need to determine a way to help children understand the issue of sustainability.
Create a simple game that teaches young children how to think about the natural resources that they use as they go throughout their day. Consider the rules of gameplay, whether the game would be a solo or group activity, and what design choices you would need to make in order to best engage your audience. And one last constraint: the game has to demonstrate the principles of sustainability itself-—by being eaten, recycled, composted, or otherwise returned to the earth in the process of being played.
Hey, You Made That Up!
There are some things in life that can’t be faked. Sugar in your morning coffee. Fresh-cut flowers in a crystal vase. Hair that hasn’t been dyed, streaked, or chemically treated within an inch of its life.
The same thinking applies to a person’s first name. When you meet a man named Fred, you know when the name fits the smile and handshake. It’s rare that you meet someone named Fragilux or Dynocorpus. Yet we’re surrounded by thousands of brands whose names are just empty containers until we’ve had a chance to fill them with meaning.
In the following challenge, you’ll need to bring out the meaning in what could otherwise be meaningless.
Write down three 3-syllable adjectives. Create a new made-up word by mashing together the first syllable from the first adjective, the second syllable from the second, and the third from the third adjective. This is your client’s new brand name. Apparently, they spent a billion dollars coming up with this name—the market research supports the choice—and as their designer of choice, you’re responsible for creating a six-panel storyboard for a motion graphics piece that will be shown at the shareholder’s meeting.
The video should convey through typography, color, and movement exactly what their company does in the market. Is this name describing a new product or service in the marketplace? A nonprofit initiative? Be as inventive as possible.
Free Association
Yes, I’d love to sit down and read your Form 10K—as long as you include some beautiful charts, graphs, and smiling children frolicking in a dandelion-laden meadow. And be sure to print the thing on 100% recycled, post-consumer waste paper with soy inks on a printing press powered by wind.
Well, designing an annual report isn’t that easy. Any designer that has lived through an annual report project knows the struggle of digesting a few dozen interviews with clients and customers, seeking that magical thread of story that will weave a full year of business and community activities into a cogent narrative. If you fail in making the story tangible in your overall copy and design, this long-form document just becomes a jumble of disparate elements that lack a grand, cohesive vision. Plus, as times grow tough for businesses and nonprofits, production values on the annual report receive the axe—further placing the handcuffs on your creative vision.
Never had a chance to design an annual report? Take this challenge and discover what it’s like to summon a grand business narrative from seemingly random elements.
Write down the name of an animal, a physical location somewhere in the world, and the name of a nonprofit that you admire. Using this information, create the cover design of this year’s annual report for said nonprofit, including some form of textual or visual reference to the animal and location. If you have time left, design the layout for the first and second spreads of the report, including considerations of the grid, while deftly weaving in the details that you’ve improvised.
Hello, My Name Is
In my trash can are dozens of crumpled-up sketches. Nested in a folder on my desktop are Illustrator files jam-packed with lovingly executed logos composed of delicate, hand-finessed Bezier curves. It's been almost three months, and no matter how many times I try to design for this client, I'm just not satisfied with the work.
This is a branding assignment for... well... me.
Identity development is the most poetic of the design disciplines, where all excess is pared away to reveal the pure essence of a client's brand. But when it comes to self-promotion, most designers can't easily gain the self-detachment necessary to summarize their own practice in an artful mark. (And without spending eons on the result.) That's what makes this challenge a form of self-help.
Over ten minutes, answer the following questions: What are my three strengths as a designer? My weaknesses? What's my favorite color? What designers do I love? What design work do I enjoy? What kind of work do I want to do in the future? Then design a logo for yourself that is clearly informed by your off-the-cuff responses. Only give yourself half an hour to sketch out your initial ideas—don't cheat!
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