01/52: Designasaur
This post was originally posted on June 25, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
A new side project to postpone creative extinction.
01/52: Designasaur
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the first design of fifty-two.
Almost 20 years ago, I attended a lecture at the University of South Carolina School of Art hosted by the Columbia Communicating Arts Society. I was a young designer and trying hard to network with other designers and CCAS was the hub of the Columbia creative community at the time. The speaker was a designer from Atlanta, Bob Wages from Wages Design. Like most designers who came to speak at events like this, Bob showed his work and talked about his creative process. I distinctly remember him mixing in a fair amount of career and business advice, giving tips about how small the design world was and how important it was to be fair to everyone you worked with. But one offhand comment has stuck with me since that lecture…
Bob Wages introduced me to the concept of the “designasaur.”
A designasaur is a designer that never evolved. Someone who wouldn’t or couldn’t adopt new technologies or new styles. A creative who hasn’t embraced the changing world and risks “extinction.”
Since the advent of desktop publishing and the creation of the internet, the design industry has grown and changed in amazing and unbelievable ways. Technology continues to evolve at an absurdly rapid pace. It’s hard — maybe impossible — to keep up with it all. The struggle to figure out and incorporate new tools and trends is constant. And it feels sometimes like extinction is just around the corner.
Almost two decades later, I realize that all my side projects have been about continuing to grow as a designer and to avoid becoming a designasaur. Trying out new challenges and delaying creative extinction as long as I can. I figured the perfect shirt to kick off my new project was a designasaur shirt.
I sketched out my designsaur* over the course of a couple of days in pencil. Once I’d refined the sketch, I took a photograph of it with my iPhone and then reconstructed it in Illustrator on my Mac. This is a pretty normal workflow for me and that familiarity actually bothered me a little. For this new side project, should I put more restrictions on the production process? Should I only use non-Adobe apps like Affinity Designer? Should I actually use the sketch instead of rebuilding it in a vector format? In the end, I decided that the challenges of production mattered less to me than the process of creation. I’m okay relying on more comfortable production processes, especially at the beginning of this project. I hope to extend a little more out of my comfort level on the production process as the project continues.
If you want a Designasaur t-shirt of your own, head over to my Threadless store and order one. It’s available in a bunch of colors and in three different styles: a unisex classic t-shirt, a men’s tri-blend shirt and a women’s tri-blend shirt**. (And as a bonus, for the first week a new shirt design is available, the price will be discounted.)
If you are interested in the project and like the shirts, please follow along and share on social media. Let me know what you think. You can reach out on Twitter and Micro.Blog.
Buy “Designasuar” on Threadless
* My 9-year-old says I should name him Bob. Or Inky.
** It’s my wife’s favorite kind of t-shirt.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year. Follow Bob on Twitter, Instagram and Micro.Blog.
Fifty Two Shirts
Every week for the next year, I’m going to release a new shirt design. You can purchase the shirts from my Threadless store.
September 30, 2018
Show Time
September 30, 2018
Designasaur: Open through October 26
September 30, 2018
June 17, 2018
52/52: Bold Fish, Big Ocean
June 17, 2018
Finishing one project, starting the next.
June 17, 2018
June 10, 2018
51/52: Don’t Give Up
June 10, 2018
It’s been a rough year.
June 10, 2018
June 3, 2018
50/52: Analog
June 3, 2018
I loved my analog childhood
June 3, 2018
May 27, 2018
49/52: Orion’s Belt
May 27, 2018
Ancient stories in the sky
May 27, 2018
May 20, 2018
48/52: Sand Dollar
May 20, 2018
The perfect beach souvenir
May 20, 2018
May 13, 2018
47/52: Coffee Run
May 13, 2018
Things always loop back around
May 13, 2018
May 6, 2018
46/52: Knowledge
May 6, 2018
Facts at my fingertips
May 6, 2018
April 29, 2018
45/52: Trophy
April 29, 2018
Tangible validation
April 29, 2018
April 26, 2018
My Team Rainbow Unicorn design featured by Threadless
April 26, 2018
Join the cutest club around.
April 26, 2018
April 22, 2018
44/52: One angry cloud ruins a picnic.
April 22, 2018
But maybe a picnic isn’t your only option.
April 22, 2018
April 15, 2018
43/52: Orlando’s
April 15, 2018
Pizza and pixels
April 15, 2018
April 8, 2018
42/52: Dingbot
April 8, 2018
Ten years of Fontstruct
April 8, 2018
April 1, 2018
41/52: Empty Tomb
April 1, 2018
Exit only.
April 1, 2018
March 24, 2018
40/52: Kudzu Palace
March 24, 2018
No one ever wants to eat there.
March 24, 2018
March 18, 2018
39/52: God and Science
March 18, 2018
You can believe in both.
March 18, 2018
March 11, 2018
38/52: The Evolution of Storage
March 11, 2018
Everything is in the cloud now.
March 11, 2018
March 4, 2018
37/52: Pens and Pencils
March 4, 2018
It matters what you write with…
March 4, 2018
February 25, 2018
36/52: Lucky
February 25, 2018
My lucky streaked started with a Commodore 64 game
February 25, 2018
February 18, 2018
35/52: Retweet Responsibly
February 18, 2018
You are responsible for every meme you share.
February 18, 2018
February 11, 2018
34/52: Rocket
February 11, 2018
Getting excited about space again.
February 11, 2018
February 4, 2018
33/52: Obscure Blogger
February 4, 2018
Entertaining and informing dozens since 2008.
February 4, 2018
January 28, 2018
32/52: Reboot
January 28, 2018
Hitting reset on my digital life.
January 28, 2018
January 21, 2018
31/52: Digital Hieroglyphics
January 21, 2018
What’s old is new again.
January 21, 2018
January 14, 2018
30/52: Love
January 14, 2018
It’s simple, really.
January 14, 2018
January 7, 2018
29/52: First Camera
January 7, 2018
Photography was one of my earliest artistic influences.
January 7, 2018
December 31, 2017
28/52: Perspective
December 31, 2017
More than just an art lesson.
December 31, 2017
December 24, 2017
27/52: Doodle
December 24, 2017
Escaping the margins.
December 24, 2017
December 17, 2017
26/52: Watch out world
December 17, 2017
Simply determined.
December 17, 2017
December 10, 2017
25/52: Day One
December 10, 2017
The first day of many.
December 10, 2017