The Demise of the Design Odyssey (R.I.P. 2010-2010)

In 2010, Angie and Rob set out on a mission. A mission to design something everyday. And for the first couple of months Rob was going strong keeping to the task and exercising that creative muscle between his ears. Angie’s odyssey unfortunately fell short within the second month. The designs were going to be gathered each month into a single post and shared on the blog. Then something unexpected happened (well, somewhat unexpected. anyone who has attempted a 365 project of their own might have seen it coming). That inspired flame that was fueling this project withered and died.

Not only did this impact the mission itself, but that burnout reached a bit farther than the boundaries of the project. Angie was somewhat spared a lengthy bout given that she had bowed out earlier on, but Rob had burned himself out nearly all around. He managed to be able to continue writing, and contributing to some design projects in minor ways during the duration of this burnout. It wasn’t easy, but as freelancers, it was necessary, so there was an element of just buckling down and powering through when it was demanded. But overall, he could not get back in touch with that inspiration for his design work.

I Digress

What made all of this that much worse, was that the blog at Dead Wings was undergoing some major conceptual changes behind the scenes, and before the burnout hit, we were really making progress towards realizing that concept and moving forward with it before the summer of 2010 was going to be upon us. So those major changes, the magazine format and style that the blog has now become, were put on the proverbial backburner. Then a virtual greasefire spread across the stovetop and totally screwed those plans up even more. Frackin’ greasefire. But that is another story for a different article.

Back on Track…and Then Some!

In the beginning, Rob considered this possibility of burnout, and actually thought he had devised a clever little way around that. He thought that if he chose a different focus for the designs each month, this would somehow help stave off the death of his inspiration. He was wrong, and apparently not that clever. For January, he designed an original Dead Wings t-shirt each day, and was really pleased with month of work. For February, Rob took it to a simpler place, designing a black and white CD single cover for some of his favorite songs, and was also pleased with the result. In March, however, he fell short on his movie poster designs.

Not as far as disappointing results, that was not the case. In fact, once again, Rob thoroughly enjoyed the posters he did re-imagine. It was just in this month however, that the odyssey finally died. But not before a final spark shone through that would light the way forward for the future of the Dead. The movie posters were not the original project idea for the month of March, no in fact, originally Rob had proposed doing another original Dead Wings focused month of designs. They were going to come in the form of faux magazine covers. This was the goal even on the first day of March when Rob followed through with it and designed the first fake cover.

But something kind of funny happened after that first cover was completed. It was a mockup based off of GQ and it was for DW (a Dead Wings magazine). But as he sat there looking over the design, which used some of our blog post titles as mock headlines, suddenly he had the urge to make another right then and there. This time it was for Dead Magazine, sort of like Mad Magazine, only once again using our blog post titles for headlines and some truly Dead Wings style graphics for the cover. Then he designed another and another. That is when he realized this would no longer qualify as a daily design project with four of them done in one sitting.

So Rob set those aside for the moment, came up with a new idea for the March edition of the Design Odyssey project, and did the first of the posters to put up at Behance. And it was actually a few days before he went back to the fake magazine covers that he had made on the first of March. It was upon this second viewing that we decided that something needed to be done not necessarily with those covers, but with that idea. The Dead Magazine covers were staring us right in the face, and yet we still were not exactly seeing it. The month carried on, and the fire for the Odyssey was beginning to weaken as we focused on trying to place this new idea.

The Circle of Life

There is that old tale about the circle of life…no, we are not talking about the Lion King. Maybe it is more of an old wive’s tale or addage that spoke about how in the circle of life, usually as someone dies, another is born. As if the lives were somehow taking the place of one another. This is kind of what happened with the demise of the Odyssey. It was almost like it had to die so that this new direction and style for the blog could be born. Perhaps because this new direction was conceived within the grips of the Odyssey, and so for it to be freed the Odyssey had to pass on. Or perhaps because we were just too lazy to pursue both.

For whatever reason, it seemed this somewhat grimly symbiotic relationship between them meant there would be no coexistence. And so it came to pass. Only the burnout factor tossed an unusually troublesome wrench into the mix, and began a long queue of disappointing redesign delays. It was as if the Design Odyssey was somehow demanding a period of mourning be observed and we were just unaware of it. And it was mourned. Though like most periods of grief, there were hints of anger mixed in. Anger at the burnout taking hold so deeply, and derailing our plans to move forward. And anger that the Odyssey went uncompleted. Anger at the failure.

The Experiment’s Conclusion

The initial theory that drove the Design Odyssey project was that this kind of continued creative muscle flexing would in fact lead to a burst of inspiration that would know nearly no bounds. But as it turns out, this project had the exact opposite effect. Again, Angie bailed out early, and so was not subject to the reign of burnout that Rob was, which as experiments go, was somewhat revealing. Rob pushed himself much harder and farther into the project and suffered horribly for it. This is not to say that no one can manage to come out of these type of daily design projects unscathed, or that no one can follow them through for the entire year. This is just how it turned out for us here. It had an unbelievable up, as well as an unbelievable down. What is your take on these kinds of projects? Helpful or harmful?