How I Broke Design Block, Including Spoilers for My Brand Redesign Launch

I'm relaunching my design business, and I so I did my first "Everything Design" Day Intensive, for myself. This is how it went, what I would do differently next time, and a sneak peek at my new brand.

Recently I did my first Everything Design Day Intensive, for myself!

I'm relaunching Skyward Ink. And I’ve been suffering for far too long from a common graphic designer’s problem: “It’s always hardest to do design for yourself”. I’ve been stuck, over-perfecting things, experiencing Design Block, and delaying the launch. The logo has been “almost done” for weeks and I needed to get moving.

This time around, I’m looking forward to experimenting with offering my services in ways that I can do more focused work with clients. I’ve found that I do my best work when I can dedicate my entire attention to you for a good chunk of time, so I can get into a flow state.

I’m taking a class with Sarah Masci on VIP Days, and she says you’ll be able to do more focused work, and get things done and launched quickly for clients when you’re running Intensives. I thought… why not try it out on myself? It sounded like the perfect way to break Design Block.

I set some lofty goals for this day of focused design work: Get "visual launch ready" by finishing my brand identity, renovating my social media profiles, getting ready to create content, and finishing the home page of the website.

In one day, I:

• Did a final round of revisions on my logo and prepared the final logo files. Look, here she is!

  

• Created visual vocabulary: logo variations, animation storyboards, visual language, illustration

• Prepared style guide, set up a color library in Adobe Creative Suite

• Designed and ordered my business cards

• Designed social media graphics (profile images, headers, and social share images on my website)

• Updated the branding on my Substack (hello again!)

• Prepared to create content by researching curtains for my new video background, to cover my whiteboard which often has private client information on it… but then later had an even better idea that saved over $200, which simply involved rearranging some furniture. Since I'm bootstrapping, lean practices win!

• Nearly finished my home page! There was a technical part at the very end... and I got a headache from not quite eating enough... and I couldn't figure it out. Lesson learned (more of those at the end of this post), and I finished it the next day.
  

Brand and Visual Vocabulary Board

Learnings to Improve Productivity

Based on this first Design Day, here’s a quick list of what I'll be changing to keep my productivity up:

• Prepare more snacks ahead of time. It seemed like my brain needed more food than usual. I didn't want to spend time making anything to eat, and risk getting out of flow. So I did the best I could, but I was starving by the end of the day. Next time, I'll make little snack boxes the night before and be ready.

• Don't stop the music! My flow state playlist ran out partway through the day, and I picked up my phone to add more to the queue… got sucked in for a few minutes. I’m lengthening my playlist so I have enough to cover the entire day.

• Schedule a brief walk outside after lunch, with my forearms exposed to the sun for vitamin D production. I had a little energy slump that this would have fixed.

• My dog definitely did not get the attention he needs this day, so he will be going to dog daycare next time. So, book a Design Day Intensive, and make Paxton the corgi's dreams come true!

Social Media Branding Kit

Introducing the Design Day Intensive:

If you have a laundry list of items you'd like to design or update, or you need to get unstuck on a design or web project... I can help with that, and we can get it done in ONE DAY. The intro price of a day is $750. Get in touch/ learn more on my brand new website over here!