As we prepare to close out 2010 and start that annual ritual of forgetting to write 2011 on everything with a date field, it’s a popular time to start a 365 project. These types of things are notorious for failing (and you know what? That’s ok too) but they can be a great exercise in putting stuff out there and committing to publishing and shipping your work and not just drafting and refining it. In a way it brings me back to ds106 because that’s what the goal of it is for me, and I believe for many others: Make Some Art, Dammit.
Boing Boing has a great wrap-up of a few 365 projects and points to an excellent blog 365: Make Something Every Day. Here are a few of my favorites that’ll I’ll certainly be sourcing for inspiration in the coming year:
BBCX365
As part of his thesis for the Academy of Art in San Francisco, Johnny Selman is sourcing BBC Headlines for material to create a poster a day from. Beautiful.
Stormtroopers 365
Such a simple idea that ends up being incredibly entertaining, take a photo each day of 2 Stormtroopers. Related: 52 Weeks with the Fetts
Daily Drop Cap
Jessica Hirsche, a typographer and illustrator working in Brooklyn, creates a drop cap letter each day while she is at work. These are gorgeous, and she even includes the embed code to use each of them in your blog as well.
The Daily Nail
Get creative with something you do daily, then photograph the results. Such a simple idea that yields a creative body of work. Love.
These only scratch the surface of what’s out there. I’m not denying that committing to do something creative for 365 days in a row is not difficult, but I think you’ll agree to portfolio of work that results from such an endeavor is worth it. I might just have to give it a try. Anyone else thinking of doing anything like this in 2011?
By It’s Alive! - CogDogBlog December 14, 2010 - 9:48 pm
[...] for something other than animated gifs? See the ideas shared by timmyboy, great stuff! The It’s Alive! by CogDogBlog, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed [...]
By Jim Groom December 16, 2010 - 6:03 am
You are on a roll, though I am experiencing that roll backwards through my feed reader. I love the Storm trooper images, two a day, I am going to have to play with some version of this with Smurfs. I have 100s of smurfs, and that might be my 365.
And the poster from BBC headlines. That would be an easy and brilliant assignment, that one goes in the bank. And I would love to see someone take up the nails a day assignment, that would be some sick, functional art
Rock it like a hurricane!
By Tim Owens December 16, 2010 - 11:11 am
I tried a 365 project a few years back and failed, partly I think because I made it too complicated ("Learn a song on guitar, draw an image, and blog about it all" Too much). Now I'm rethinking things and trying to decide if there's some low-bandwidth thing I can do that won't take too much of my time and resources and still have entertainment value. The BBC thing is my favorite too, added that one to my feed reader.