Andrew Pomeroy

In the past day or two, I've jettisoned whatever project ideas I had been building for a new one entirely: A flash application intended to manage and promote my daily design process.

I first got my inspiration from an article on what some are calling the Seinfeld Calendar.

Jerry Seinfeld used one of these while he was an aspiring comedian, using it to manage how often he would spend writing comedy, of which he knew he must be a disciplined practitioner in order to become successful. His system was to mark a giant red X on each day during which he spent some time writing. His goal was to accomplish this every single day, so that once he got some momentum and the X's started piling up, the motivation not to break the chain was enough to keep him diligent about continuing the process day after day.

So at first my idea was to utilize this idea pretty much unchanged, except instead of writing, it would be to help me draw up one graphic each day to practice my graphic design skills. After Tuesday's class, though, my ideas evolved a bit.

Having watched the part of The Five Obstructions in class, I got to thinking about what kind of 'obstructions' my design process could use. In an instant I had an epiphany; I realized that with respect to my personal design process, the one that I had been trying to improve all throughout this class so far, the need for practice as well as the need for obstructional inspiration sources could be fulfilled with a a single innovation.

So here's what I've got so far:
A Flash application (compiled in Adobe AIR so it can run as a cross-platform desktop application) whose purpose is to both provide a daily design impetus along the same lines as the Seinfeld calendar, but also to provide inspiration along the lines of providing 'obstructions.' The design is as follows:

The application is meant to guide my daily design processes, and as such, it alerts me every day at a specified time. I am then prompted to run the main process of the program, which is to select a number of various parameters to have bearing on the graphic design piece I am to produce that day. These parameters are all chosen at complete random, and I am bound to using them in the piece I create as avenues for inspiration, as per the 'obstruction' method. These parameters include the following:
Restrictions:
-Type (from portrait, vector icon, desktop art, signage, logo design, web design, reprise or 'remix' of previous work, etc)
-Size (if applicable)
Inspiration elements:
-Primary color OR Adobe Kuler swatch
-Random word from a sizeable dictionary
-Random Google Image Search or Flickr image result
-Random song picked from user's music library

The user will able to select any of these parameters to include or exclude for any given day.
I'm debating on whether to include a timer in the program as well to keep the time spent on each design minimal. Also, the method by which the previous work will be shown and tracked as progress, well, that's completely up in the air still as well. A good deal of this project will rest on figuring out how to interface Flash with other software.

If I'm able to pull this off well, I'll have a finished application as well as a body of work to evidence the effectiveness of the process. The application is designed with customization and versatility in mind, so that any user seeking a solution to 'designer's block' should be able to install this program and achieve similar results.