127/Let’s talk personal projects

I’m working on a new project again! I love having ideas and the tools and creative ability to make them come to life. I used to work on prompts and design challenges like designing a new landing page for a band to have a platform to take bookings for their latest tour and more. While those are great for UI practice and consistency, it can only take you so far in design thinking, solving user problems, building design systems, working with components and variant systems and the likes.

The antidote to that is working on personal projects, chosen and developed carefully. I refuse to work on another website for a coffee shop (though there’s nothing wrong with those and can be so much to look at from a new angle!) Any project I pick to work on is based on a real problem faced by me or people I care about, and whose current solutions are not helpful, badly designed or not made yet. These can be niche problems sometimes, but that’s ok!

I sketch out the problem, and take my time talking to a lot of people about it, noting their takes on it and how they might want it solved. Then, I narrow down the problem statement and potential solutions and from then on it’s making and breaking and tweaking and re-doing and asking for feedback and molding and sharing and asking for help and sleeping on it and frustration and good days when it works out effortlessly and changes and ending up with something that’s good enough…for a launch. And even then, the launch is just the beginning.

Sometimes, you’re not solving a problem. Sometimes you’re creating something you wish existed in this world, but doesn’t, so you make it. And that’s what this new project of mine is. I got this idea at 3 in the morning a couple of days ago as i was scrolling through Twitter. I got up and rushed to note it down in my notebook lest i forgot it in the morning. I refined it more and sketched out the first roughs; tonight I’m working on the design system and starting the high fidelity wireframes tomorrow 🥳 I’m excited to publish it when i finish on the Figma file and the case study!

Really sleepy now, I met snigs and she makes the BEST maggi so it was a great dayyy