Spring Green is an Antidote to Winter Blues

About this time of year, I find myself doubting that winter will actually end. After four months of dreary, cold days, it gets old. And depressing. The Winter Blues.

Then a subtle shift happens. A warm day here, a rainy day there and bits of green start appearing. Last week, I noticed the pale halos of chartreuse sprouting on my street’s tree canopy and yesterday the grass came alive. Even if the sky is gray, there’s hope on the ground.

As a gardener, that hope is making me antsy. Oddly, even yard cleanup tasks that exhausted me in November feel energizing. Now, I can’t wait for slight warm ups so I can rake random leaves, wrangle out big swaths of ivy, and cut back dead plants. The tiny tips of hyacinths and tulips breaking through the hard soil seem to be encouraging us to follow suit. My grandiose visions for total revamping of my garden seem utterly possible. Who cares how much it would cost! I have plenty of time and energy to do anything! Pollen? What pollen?!

So what if we see a rain/snow mix tomorrow! In April, Spring always conquers Winter.

Walking is an antidote to creative blocks

We all hit creative blocks. You know the brick wall you can’t seem to get past, usually as a deadline looms.

When I hit that wall its a signal that my well of inspiration is drying up and I need a big refill. Unfortunately, I may need rest or a trip somewhere to replenish my well, but I don’t have time for it. If I’m on the hamster wheel of production I need a quick fix.

That’s when I get up and talk a walk without headphones.

Something about being outside quickly stops my rumination. I become present and the repetitive thoughts start to fade. Maybe it’s the fresh air or all the details of the world around me. Maybe its the randomness and lack of control I have over what I encounter. It could even be that physical movement shifts my energy and focus outside of my head.

After 20 minutes or so, new thoughts come in. I feel clearer and often sparks of new ideas may pop up. If nothing else, I’m less anxious and frustrated.

I used to dread creative blocks. Now I just get up and get moving.

Rails are an antidote to scope creep.

When designers use the term “rails” they’re referring to the creative boundaries set for a project. Rails are intended to keep the team from wandering off on tangents. Clear rails set up a win/win situation where the client doesn’t waste money and the creatives don’t waste time. They’re fleshed out in the creative brief, but are born in the scope document.

Project scope may not seem like an inspiring topic, but it’s an important foundation for any successful project. It outlines the client’s situation or request, the high-level objective, suggested approach or solution, project management overview, timing by phases, roles of team members and fee arrangement. It’s usually dry stuff, often drafted by committee, based on a template. I think its important for designers to be involved in scoping, if not draft their own scopes.

More than just legal documents, scopes are an opportunity to set expectations. Knowing how much time and money you have to work with are the first set of rails in any project. So is a clear definition of the project’s basic objective.

Creative solutions can live in a vast world of imagination, where we can do anything. And its tempting to promise the moon, because we all aspire to delivering amazing work. A good scope brings blue-sky thinking down to earth so the real work can start.

I’ve learned to enjoy the creative challenge of solving client challenges on a tight budget and savor those with large budgets. There’s never an endless pile of money for any project — the best designers embrace rails and rise to the occasion.

Beauty is an antidote to discord.

I believe beauty can transform the ugliness around us and inspire our souls. It has the power to capture us emotionally, overtaking logic in a nanosecond. It can lift our spirits, surprise us, calm and heal us. It’s intrinsic value is immense.

Over the past decade, I’ve noticed a change in the design zeitgeist. After decades of adhering to narrow aesthetic standards defined by minimalism, especially in graphic design, an explosion of beauty is expanding our definition of “good” design. The idea that one single, International Design style could be appropriate to all applications with global appeal was preposterous and arrogant.

Following WWII, midcentury design injected an optimism that lightened things up in furniture and interior design while humor inched into advertising. But as companies grew and diversified, corporate standards increasingly dismissed ornamentation as unnecessary or indulgent and led a streamlined conformity that dominated much of the graphic design world. Beauty was a disregarded, archaic ideal.

Thankfully, there’s been an explosion of diverse styles that balance the neutrality of the past. Personality is not only allowed, its embraced as differentiator. Openness is an antidote to conformity, and expansion is an antidote to boredom.

Don’t get me wrong — the cool intellectualism of the Bauhaus, succinctly summed up by Mies Vander Rohe as “less is more” will always be relevant. There’s a timelessness to mid-20th century design. I embrace the grace of a Barcelona chair, the balance of Helvetica and the simplicity of Philip Johnson’s Glass house. AND I also appreciate the lyricism of William Morris’ Pimpernel wallpaper, the streamlined glamour of the Chrysler Building and the extravagance of Justina Blakeney’s Jungalow interiors.

In a world that seems to be brimming with stress, anxiety, and tension, creating beauty used to feel like an act of rebellion. Now it just feels like freedom.

Antidotes Manifesto

an·​ti·​dote ˈant-i-ˌdōt : a remedy to counteract the effects of poison

A blog focused on design’s power to solve modern problems

This blog is a place for me to explore and share design-related ideas that float around my head. It’s a place to test my theory that writing just may be an antidote to rumination, and that embracing imperfection is an antidote to the paralysis of perfectionism. It’s a way for me to share more than work samples with potential clients and colleagues. My intention here is to a share of how I work, think and see the world.

It’s started out as a personal challenge to write a daily blog entry for 30 days. I’m a designer who is learning to write. In all honesty, writing in a public forum intimidates me. I get tangled up in balancing the rules with being authentic and relevant. I agonize over phrasing and choosing the right words. But when I’m intimidated by something I really want to accomplish, my nagging curiosity eventually drowns out any mental resistance. That’s when I turn it into a personal challenge. In this case, I’m choosing to invest time and energy into building confidence in my authentic voice. Wobbles and mistakes are ahead, but I know how to roll with it.

Let’s see where this goes!