You think I would learn

As most creative do, ideas swirl constantly in my mind. I try to get them out as soon as I can, but it's not always that easy with an 8 month old and a full time job. So, I usually end up throwing something together in Illustrator, only to never be satisfied with how my design transferred to the computer from my mind. Sometimes I just go with it and sometimes I don't. I now have an entire bin full of "shouldn't have gone with that" to put out at my next craft fair as a "discontinued bin". You think I would learn by now to go back to the way we did it in school.

Sketches.

Mock ups.

Lay down the design.

Mock up.

Fix problems.

Mock up.

Finished.

Make millions.

The last part may be a stretch, but lately I haven't been able to successfully transfer ideas to designs and I know what the problem is. I haven't mocked it up or sketched it out. I haven't put it to paper- I haven't looked at all the possibilities. I haven't seen it- its flaws, its successes, it's "okays". We all have ideas in our minds, but we can never know if they are feasible (for us and our resources, anyway) unless we work out their kinks.

For months I've been mulling over a project, how to get it work and how I want to pull it together. It never dawned on me until now to sketch it out and mock it up. *duh* I started to do it with another project and *shocking* it worked. It showed me areas of improvement, areas that didn't work and areas I really liked. I haven't been able to go back to this project- mainly because I thought of another medium that would work better than card stock and give it the extra push over edge to make it great.



So now, I find my sketch book again, put down the design, mock it up, work it out and put out something I'm proud of and you're proud to give out. I've obviously had success with items that I take my time with (my calendar that 2 years), so I need to pay attention to what works and go with that method. I've always said that I will not put something out there again that I wouldn't buy myself. I need to remember that. There are a lot of good ideas that are just sitting in folders on my computer waiting to come to life- but they're all missing something and I refuse to put them out there before they're ready. I'm almost there, but "almost" isn't good enough.

Now if you'll excuse me... I have some designs to work out.