Flexing Your Imagination during the Holidays

Graphic designer and illustrator Niki Brown offers a short-and-sweet list of five ways to proactively decompress during the holidays. They’re actually reminders of things to do in all seasons. The first recommendation of “Get off your computer!” is a tough one— especially if it’s a frequently used tool for iterating a concept, whether thin or thick, with pixels, vectors, words, pictures or all of the above. The last recommendation of starting or revisiting a personal project is likewise simultaneously motivating and challenging. In addition to writing a blog post and sketching a typeface, you can:

• Revisit past conference notes
• Indulge in your sketchbooks
• Play with a layout
• Compose thoughts about design
• Make a list
• Capture what’s in your relative’s garage
• Capture what you carry
• Draft a manifesto
• Illustrate with snow

Whatever your personal project-with-potential may be, to echo Brown’s tall order: “Just create.”