100 Days of Vector Illustration
By: Tiantian Xu
Tags: Design, Personal Development, Sketch, The100DayProject, Creativity

Reflecting

1. Always stay inspired

I have always believed that creativity is a skill — the more your practice it, the more creative you are. However, this time I learned something new:

In order to be creative, you need to stay inspired.

When I was working on the dog alphabet, I simply repeated the same visual pattern everyday. I didn’t look for outside inspiration. Soon I got bored and wasn’t feeling creative anymore.

Since then, I decided to stay inspired all the time. I spent 10–30 minutes every day browsing Dribbble, Behance, Instagram and collected the best work on my Pinterest boards. My growing Pinterest collection has served as my source of inspiration and I was able to stay creative for the rest of the 100 days.

2. Stop comparing

I still remember the feeling when I stumbled upon the wonderful work from “36 Days of Type” challenge. Those work, created by top artists and illustrators all over the world, were so good.

For a while I started to question the existence of my own work.

As I dug into those artists’ backgrounds, I realized that they are professional illustrators/designers who have been in the creative field for a long time. It doesn’t make sense to compare my work with theirs because we have different background, experience and goals. We are on different creative path.

The only thing I would compare my work to is my old work. Whenever I was in doubt, I looked back at my own work from the first day. The huge improvements on skill and process have always motivated me to continue my creative journey.

“Take pride in how far you’ve come. Have faith in how far you can go. But don’t forget to enjoy the journey.” — Michael Josephson

3. Embrace the gap between ambition and output

Although I can see improvements on my illustration skill over time, I was frequently disappointed by my own work: the poor color combination, the bad type choice, the lack of consistent visual style… Sometimes I simply felt the work was not good, but I had no idea how to improve it.

Ira Glass described this gap between ambition and output:

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you.”

I decided to embrace the gap between ambition and output. As long as the gap exists, there is room to learn and improve. It is only by going through a volume of work that I will close that gap, and my work will be as good as my ambitions.

4. Do the work that feeds your soul

I started my first 100-day-project in 2015. Since then, I would receive a few “Likes” and gain new followers on social media. However, as more and more people paid attention to my work, I started feeling lost. I got distracted by the number of “Likes” and wanted to create something people like in order to gain more recognition.

That’s why I found Jessica Walsh’s words resonating:

“Do the work that feeds your soul, not your ego.”

I reminded myself the goal of this project was to make beautiful things even if nobody cares. I wanted to hone my vector illustration skills. I wanted to express myself by creating things that resonated with me. This project was started for the sake of creation, not for fame.

“Create for the sake of creation whenever you feel the urge to do so. Treat it as a basic human need. Challenge, surprise, change yourself .” — @fell_martins

End

Looking back, I feel accomplished. I created 100 pieces of vector illustration during the past 100 days. My illustration skill has been improved. The satisfaction of creating something that resonates with my soul feels great.

Since I started the first 100-day-project in 2015, I have formed the habit of creating. I’m grateful to be part of the 100-day-project community and I look forward to starting the next 100-day-project soon.

Below is my 100 days of vector illustration in 15 seconds.

Resources

Here are some helpful links:

Also, check out the following Instagram accounts for design inspiration:

Community: supplyanddesign, thedesigntalks, genecreative, illustate,

Individual: maite_franchi, lukedoylestudio, juliendreamdesign, liquid_ink, rosemarie.cc, typoe11, bymeilne, marioayala.design