100 days of gratitude
By: Kira Street
Tags: Resources, Gratitude, Icon Design, 100dayproject, Graphic Design

I was recently inspired by Mel Smith’s #100dayproject for illustrating musicians. It looked like such a fun way to explore different styles, so I thought I’d do something similar. Also, it would give me a good opportunity to try designing smaller, more detail-oriented subjects.

With that inspiration behind me, I got to work on preparing for my very own 100-day project.

Preparation

My first question was, what on earth could I design for 100 days without getting incredibly bored and unmotivated in the middle? Based on past attempts to do a creative series, I know a few things about myself:

If the individual piece requires a ton of effort every day, I won’t keep it up. It’s exhausting to come up with an idea to design off the top of my head every day. Half-heartedness on the subject won’t cut it. I either need to be all in or not in at all.

After toying with some ideas of designing an app screen each day (too much effort), or drawing an illustration on my phone using the Adobe Draw app (portable, but too unfamiliar, and I wasn’t too keen about drawing on my phone), I settled on designing an icon or a small graphic each day in Adobe Illustrator.

Day 5: Clean dishes

I’m already familiar with Illustrator, and icons can be super simple. So from the start, I didn’t feel any pressure to make a polished, realistic-looking graphic. Plus, after reading this article by Varghese Mathai, I thought I could try different icon styles, like dotted, glyph, and isometric.

When it came to subject matter, I thought back to a habit I had formed a few months ago of writing down three things I’m grateful for every night. I did this for about 8 months to encourage me to remember the small joys in life (very much needed this year), so I had a huge list of 600+ items to pull from. I could literally just go down my list and choose one or two items to design from each day.

With my idea set, I went into this project with the following goals:

Explore designing in different styles, eventually to discover my own style. Experiment with different Illustrator features and workflows. Keep a spirit of gratitude.

Let’s see how this project helped achieve those goals.

1. Explore design styles and find my own

My color palette (and personal aesthetic)

Simplicity was my first priority. I didn’t want the icons to take a ton of time out of my day, but I did want them to be unique and cohesive. Choosing a color palette allowed me to have an initial idea for each graphic so I wasn’t staring at a blank, white square each day. I chose some of my favorite jewel tone-like colors that I could deviate from if the design called for it.

The first graphics were definitely a little awkward, but I found myself really enjoying the 8bit and outline styles. You’ll see that those styles made some repeat appearances throughout the project.

Examples of different styles I tried (Left to right: line, gradient, 8bit, flat, isometric)

Day 9 (shown above as the last graphic) was probably my least favorite; it made me realize that I really don’t like making realistic vector portraits. And isometric icons required an exactness I wasn’t fully prepared for and didn’t necessarily like.

If I had to choose a particular style, I’d choose a combination of the flat icons and the line icons. I loved the simplicity of how an outlined icon could convey a lot of information with minimal visuals.

Day 39: Seeing Neowise with my dad

A close second was working with gradients. On a smaller scale, I found I can design for some impressive realism by cleverly working with gradients.

Day 15: Vegan Sonoran hotdogs

As for the 8bit style, the one with the Vegan Sonoran hotdog is my favorite by far. I was so proud of making a believable hotdog pixel by pixel. This may end up being a facetious Slack profile picture one day.

Line, gradient, and flat styles will for sure come up for my future designs.

2. Experiment with Illustrator features

Adobe Illustrator is such a powerful tool, and I have yet to truly take advantage of the potential it offers. I thought to start by playing with a few features, like the mesh gradient tool and texturing.

Examples of graphics with mesh gradients

I had so much fun with the mesh gradient tool. I already love playing with color, so blending them together was such a joy. It was good for rendering light, shadow, reflections, color changes, and depth. I see gradients quickly becoming a mainstay in my personal design style.

Day 20: Writing

Not so true with textures. Though I did enjoy using gradient and shape to create textures, I didn’t like using pre-made textures (like grains or paper) with blend modes. Just not my thing or my style. But it was certainly interesting to try.

Day 37: Apple pie

But as I said, textures with gradients were particularly interesting. With the right gradient color and direction, you can get some interesting patterns.

3. Keep a spirit of gratitude

Let’s be honest. 2020 has not been the best. I know I’ve had some stresses, annoyances, and grievances.

I lost my job and had to move back in with my parents across the country. I lost the ability to see friends in person whether through work or church. The election stressed me out and I got so upset that I simply stopped going on Facebook (which I think I’ll continue to do; I choose peace). Racial injustice has been going rampant while people kept denying its existence. And let’s not forget a pandemic that has affected pretty much everyone in the world.

Day 24: Chocolate chip cookies

Even as a person of faith with a generally positive view on life, I was overwhelmed with everything piled on top of each other. But doing this project put gratefulness to the front of my mind.

Day 47: Seeing a spider make its web

Before this project, I’d mainly think of somewhat large things to be thankful for. Like being healthy or having a job with a stable income (which I definitely appreciate). But, this project also reminded me of the little things, like chocolate chip cookies and seeing a spider make its web.

None of those types of things were directly related to my sense of financial security or physical well-being (in fact those cookies may have contributed to my “COVID 15"), but they were no less joyful to me. They gave me something to smile about or look forward to or share with someone else.

Though I had times where I’d be incredibly lonely and listless, these little joys reminded me that there is so much to be thankful for and so much to enjoy, even in isolation. Even when I’m where I don’t want to be.

In conclusion…

I accomplished all three of my goals of finding my style, exploring Illustrator’s tools, and staying grateful. Would I do this kind of project again? Maybe. Perhaps with a different subject or constrained along a certain style of icon. Or with another Illustrator feature. Either way, I loved having the time to just play with design, to not be at the mercy of a brief given to me.

Tea by a window

Continuing with that attitude of play, I then went to designing a few extra pieces with my 100 graphics. Tea by a window. A grid of blackberries. Not to sell them or anything, but purely for my own enjoyment (because I rarely get the chance to do that anymore).

Doing these expansions when I was lacking inspiration for the day’s icon made the project even more fun for me.