The opportunity of the blank page
Originally posted on LinkedIn in May 2016
I sat down a few weeks ago to design a couple pictures for my kid’s play room. It occurred to me as I picked up my pen that I hadn’t sketched anything by hand in quite some time. The pen felt almost foreign, as if my fingers were now conditioned to drape across a mouse, and didn’t know how to wrap around a pen or pencil anymore.
My task was simple: I wanted a couple clean, colorful, playful images that fit in the room for which they were destined.
But for such a simple task, the effect it had on me was borderline profound. I grew up sketching constantly. I imagined monsters or mythical creatures and gave them statistics like a video game to see which ones would (theoretically) emerge victorious in battle. I came up with stories and sketched anime-esque characters (poorly) to accompany them. The sports stars I idolized at the time—Ken Griffey, Jr., anyone? How about Mitch Richmond?—found their way onto my pages frequently.
Then, somewhere along the way, the sketchbooks gave way to computers; the sketches to files; the pens, pencils, and markers to a mouse and keyboard. “Photoshop” became a verb, and when I needed design elements to accompany the words of a story, I turned to even more words…in the form of CSS.
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And that’s all okay, of course. I’m certainly not advocating we rid ourselves of these tools. I love them.
My little play room project has just reminded me that I loved sketching once too. And that these two facets of design, if you will, probably go hand in hand more than I’ve allowed them to recently.
I’m not sure I have a point with all of this, other than to point out that, if you’re like me, maybe you should consider breaking out that old sketchbook—or, in my case nowadays, a Rocketbook Wave—and doodle something, silly or otherwise. It might just get your creative juices flowing again, even if you didn’t realize they’d been a bit stopped up.
And when you stare at that first blank page, don’t think about the oft-referenced “tyranny.” Think about the opportunity.
In the meantime, enjoy some whimsical, pointless-by-design play room art.
Because what kid wouldn’t want a robot dog, or to sit down and read a story to some engrossed zoo animals, am I right?
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
