365 Reasons to be Creative

Creator of Skull-A-Day* and inspiration behind the Weekminds project, Noah Scalin, has released a new book— 365: Make Something Every Day and Change Your Life. The book is an inspirational guide for starting your own 365-day project. The idea being that your creativity will be fueled by actually making something every day.

Weekminds may not have been as daily disciplined as 365, but I do know that during the year of facilitating the exercise, I got to work with mediums that I hadn't tried in years, and some that were brand new to me. It was a great opportunity to experiment, and to step away from the computer and make something that, while perhaps silly, was fun and different. You can see my collection of year 1 monkeys here and the resulting Blurb book (and its cover) here!

If you're feeling stuck in a creative rut or bound by your daily barrage, I encourage to try your own creative exercise. It's very liberating to look at things and think about their possibilities differently.

I'd also like to note a similarity, which actually first drew my attention Scalin's new book. Feels slightly reminiscent of.... But I digress, we thieved first!

*Not familiar with Skull-A-Day? You can see it all in just over a minute right here.

This Little Monkey went to Market

Ever since completing Year 1 of Weekminds, where I made a monkey every week for 52 weeks, Monkeys seem to be popping up everywhere—specifically of the sock variety.

I don't know if this observation is due to a heightened conscious awareness on my part—or if I inadvertently, single-handedly started a trend :)

What's particularly notable is how some of these sock monkeys are made without socks! I'm a big fan of CrankyPants on Etsy!

1. CrankyPants' cranky pants

2. Cranky Quilt

And per usual, when word gets out of an "unintentional collection" marvelous trinkets appear in the mailbox. Check out these stellar toe socks from my aunt in Alaska. There may not be monkeys in Alaska, but they sure do appreciate a warm pair of socks!

Blood-shot and Frazzled?

My blog postings for the last month have become increasingly scattered and infrequent. Rest assure this is nothing to do with lack of interest, but rather lack of sleep.

Being busy is always a good thing for a designer, and this designer isn't complaining. Luckily I was born nocturnal. For this week's Weekminds challenge I actually celebrated my exhaustion by hailing the Flailing Insomniacs as my personal mascot:

"Dressed in multi-colored argyle and clashing patterns because a). they haven't had time to do laundry and b). they got dressed in the dark. Hair, clearly uncombed; eyes, blood-shot and frazzled. They have two sets of arms to make multi-tasking easier!"


Its not totally unlike the Ugly Ex-Boyfriend VooDoo Doll I made several years back for my friend Sarah, post break-up!

Be sure to take part in this week's Weekminds task by designing your own Aol. homepage corner. Submissions will be uploaded Wednesday evening, 10.13.10. Send photos to weekminds@gmail.com.

A Blurb about Blurb (and another Weekminds plug!)


I sincerely attribute my design enthusiasm to scrapbooking as a
child. I loved to cut and paste. And when scissors were replaced with
control "X", Kodak prints were replaced with Blurb.

Have you met Blurb? Digital scrapbooks for every occasion. They're so efficient and sleek, which is why I marked the completion of Weekminds Year 1 with a 7" x 7" Softcover Blurb book. It arrived in the mail yesterday—the perfect compliment to the posting of Task #1 for Weekminds Year 2!

Feel Creative on Thursdays?

A few weeks back, I wrote about Noah Scalin, his skull project and the Weekminds challenge that followed.

The first year has ended, and I've shelved my monkeys (though they can still be seen here). But today marks the first day of a new challenge, 52 challenges actually, and you're invited to participate. See all the details on the Weekminds website, but in short, a new challenge will be posted every Thursday, and you have till the following Wednesday to submit a jpg. There's no commitment this year, just whenever you need a creative outlet. Check it out Task #1 here! (send jpgs to weekminds@gmail.com)

Skulls Unleashed

At the 2009 HOW Design Conference in Austin, Texas, I sat in on Noah Scalin's session Making A Living as a Socially Conscious Designer. And that's exactly what Noah and the staff at Another Limited Rebellion in Richmond, Virginia do—rather than choosing clients based on who has the biggest pocketbook, they choose clients who have a greater positive impact on their community. It's quite commendable.

But that's not what I'm going to write about today.

Instead, I'm going to talk about skulls. Not in a fascinated by death manner. Nor in a "I keep dreaming about Johnny Depp dancing around skulls in an underwater cave" guise. But instead, out of admiration for a brilliant creative challenge.

Noah Scalin is the creator (and accidental mastermind) behind skulladay.com. On June 4, 2007 Noah cut a skull out of orange paper, posted in online and wrote, "I'm making a skull image every day for a year." And he did.

He had no real reason to do this. But he also had no good reason not to. And people loved it. Strangers were inspired and began sending him skulls they had made. It was 2 years later when I first heard about the project, and I too was inspired.

Along with 11 of my colleagues at Reagan Marketing + Design, LLC, we set out on our own year-long challenge that we dubbed Weekminds. Each artist chose an item* and, for 52 weeks, were set with the task of making an image of that object. Today marks Week 51 of our 52 committed weeks. Preparations are being made for year two—stay tuned for more details.

In 2008, a book was released, SKULLS, showcasing 150 of Noah's skulls. The original 365 can be viewed on skulladay.com along with all the Bonus Skulls that have transpired since.

*I choose a monkey because I opened a dictionary and pointed at the word kinkajou. And a kinkajou is kinda like a nocturnal monkey. Which really also kinda describes me.