100 Sketches
In what I could say was two lifetimes ago, I was a product design student. I was a design student with just okay drawing skills (at least, compared to my peers) and from early on we were drilled in basically connecting what was in our minds to the developing dexterity and skill of our hands, making what we imagined into form.
For every semester after our freshman year, product design students basically had one whole semester for one major project, Product Design I to V, where each major project had a theme and the output was a polished design product. Naturally, the difficulty of the theme and execution increased with every semester.
Now, each semester we had to start with an idea, iterate on that idea, do research around the idea, and develop a design. In early semesters it was more about developing shapes to answer a problem, and in later semesters it began with identifying a problem, and iterating an answer through design (supplemented by research).
A big part of this process was sketching. The sketching part was not just to iterate what kind of shape would look good, but also consider on how a person would interact with it, what kind of shapes would be ideal to solve a certain problem, and sometimes, what kinds of products/shapes/forms exist to solve that problem today. We were required to go through at least 100 sketches — not scribbles, but actual studies of the form, before finally arriving at the design we believed would best serve the need. This wasn’t the finish of the process — we still had to make work drawings with consideration about material, production process, ergonomics and so on, but the sketching part was as important part as research in iterating on the idea towards a design solution.
After leaving behind the design process during my corporate years at various entertainment companies, I “rediscovered” the thought process through a slap in the face when my first tech startup was failing. I unfortunately was not smart enough (and, if I may say, market forces weren’t favourable either) to turn that ship around, but iterating on ideas over time through “brute force creativity”, like these 100 sketches, is something I hold on to dearly, becoming part of my teaching method as well. (Side note: there are two main reasons why I force myself to teach classes even during my busiest days: 1) reinforce my learning about the company building process and look at it through new eyes every semester and 2) try to make sure as many people as possible go through the learning process earlier).
The creative process alas is not for everyone, as almost everyone can probably sing, but not everyone can pleasantly carry a tune, play a musical instrument or write songs. Yet, going through a gauntlet of relentlessly iterating on your idea will probably not give you the best version of the ide after, but will probably imprint towards you a heightened level of skill. It’s kind of like Kobe Bryant and his 1000 shots a day mantra — not everyone can be Kobe Bryant but after 1000 shots a day, your skills as a basketball shooter would remarkably improve.
Bringing hundreds of thousands of writers on board and writing consistently, week in week out, is what has been happening on KaryaKarsa for years, and on other platforms from way before KaryaKarsa was born (and was the thing that led me to write this article). There are no guaranteed outcomes, but after a while, with some discipline and putting some thought in the process, each participant will come out a better writer. And that’s when everything begins to fall into place. Creating a lot of crappy sketches will help a designer become great at his work some day, and I believe that applies to any creative skill.
Now, if we could just increase the velocity and inject this process in to audiobooks and sineminis.
