2010365:
A DESIGN PROJECT

(AND A BOOK)

2010365:
A DESIGN PROJECT

(AND A BOOK)

Rule #1: Make something every day. 365 projects. No exceptions.

Rule #2: Make it public. It’s like quitting smoking. The more people you tell about it, the harder it is to cop out.

Rule #1: Make something every day. 365 projects. No exceptions.

Rule #2: Make it public. It’s like quitting smoking. The more people you tell about it, the harder it is to cop out.

The Virtue of Forced Creativity

Concept Development / Art Direction / Design / Photography / Copywriting / Publication / Illustration / and pretty much everything else imaginable.

After following a long and meandering route through higher education, lofty aspirations, and unlikely career paths, I found myself in an somewhat enviable position. After an agonizing post-grad job search, I had comfortably settled a full-time design job (two, in fact). 

After a rough streak of dull corporate clients, it seemed like my professional career was going to consist of interesting ideas getting veto’ed for bland solutions, and drowning in the ocean of production on applications I didn't like in the first place. 

To keep from getting stagnant in my 9-5 (which was kindly paying my rent), and to stave off creative laziness, I undertook a year-long personal project.

Every day I had to make something “cool”. It was fun and terrible and amazing and exhausting. Years later I created a 200 page book about the project, the process, and the many things I learned. The book features every project, along with background information, as well as a number of essays on the project and creativity in general. 

More recently, I've given a number of talks about what it was like, forcing oneself to be creative, and how some of that can apply for folks in both creative and traditional roles. 

See the complete project (and its terrible Wordpress site) in sequence here.

Selected Projects

2010365_1001_ElementsI_Color-web
2010365_1301_ElementsIII-web
2010365_1201_ElementsII_Color-web
2010365_0501_Pi_Color-web
2010365_1502_AnatomyOfACurvedLine_2
2010365_1904_Cellist-web
2010365_2007_Trekkies-web
2010365_1207_BloodMeridian-web
2010365_1908_Dune-web
2010365_2608_DuneMessiah-web
2010365_2708_ChildrenofDune-web
2010365_0102_StringTheory_Poster
2010365_0207_TP_Mountain-web
2010365_0307_TP_RockShow-web
2010365_0410_TWP_Honeymoon-web
2010365_0310_TWP_MOH-web
2010365_3009_TWP_Outfit-web
2010365_0407_TP_Nature-web
2010365_0807_TP_Gallery-web
2010365_1307_TP_Reading2-web
Cyan Cities
2010365_0212_IvoryTower-web
Print
2010365_1604_Penguin-web
2010365_1606_SLG_Bookmark_Front-web
2010365_1606_SLG_Bookmark_Back-web
2010365_1901_LoremIpsum2-web
2010365_1801_LoremIpsum1-web
2010365_1810_LegoAlex-web
2010365_1211_LegoMark-web
2010365_2010_LegoJohn-web
2010365_1910_LegoBrian-web
2010365_2408_Trappiste6-web
2010365_2508_Trappiste8-web
2010365_2308_Trappiste10.indd
2010365_2510_Elephant-web
2010365_2810_PolarBear-web
2010365_2601_LC_Form
2010365_2401_Kitchen-web
2010365_1905_FlatlandPoster-web
2010365_3012_Duo-web
2010365_2411_SavoryPacman-web
2010365_1503_StillSick-web

The Book

2010365Book_Cover
2010365Book_Pages__0000__MSD2029.NEF
2010365Book_Pages__0002__MSD2032.NEF
2010365Book_Pages__0001__MSD2030.NEF
2010365Book_Pages__0003__MSD2033.NEF
2010365Book_Pages__0004__MSD2035.NEF
2010365Book_Detail_1
2010365Book_Pages__0013__MSD2046.NEF
2010365Book_Detail_2
2010365Book_Pages__0007__MSD2038.NEF
2010365Book_Pages__0008__MSD2039.NEF
2010365Book_Pages__0009__MSD2040.NEF
2010365Book_Detail_3
2010365Book_Pages__0010__MSD2041.NEF
2010365Book_Pages__0012__MSD2044.NEF
2010365Book_Pages__0006__MSD2037.NEF
2010365Book_Pages__0005__MSD2036.NEF
2010365Book_Pages__0011__MSD2043.NEF

The Talk

Hootsuite Lightning Talk

June 1st, 2015  (11 min)

When you have a set of skills and techniques at your disposal as a designer, you use them. In the course of day-to-day work, you adapt this style and learn new techniques to meet the individual demands of your clients (or at least you should). Remove client’s demands and become accountable only to yourself though, the need to grow and adapt can vanish. It becomes easy to fall into making the same few things over and over again, but with different content. That's where the challenge lies. 

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Want to say hi?

Numbers: (001) 778.998.5592

Letters: mark.stokoe@gmail.com

Interwebs: LinkedIn

Due to increasing urban density, carrier pigeon deliveries will no longer be accepted. Any sent will likely not return, but can be assumed to have gone to a better place.