Whenever I wanted something when I was little I would make it. Crafting and building things was all about doing things for myself. I was focused on the outcome but also on having something that kept my weird little introverted only-child self enthralled.
I’ve lost that a bit as I’ve grown older, busier, more independent in other ways.
It’s something I’ve been missing. Making things for an audience has kept me accountable to keep pushing my illustration, but I think only making things with someone else directly or inadvertently in mind has left me feeling empty with my practice.
I’ve tried to just start making things for fun but without a clear project, it’s easily fallen by the wayside to work for clients or visible work for this blog.
That was until watching hours of Bon Apetit’s Gourmet Makes reminded me of the child in me who loved to make homemade versions of what she’d seen polished and shiny out in the real world, even if it was half cobbled together.
Ever since I started my job as a design researcher, I’ve found myself envious of the stickers that seem to adorn the well beaten macbooks of my colleagues.
Adorning your laptop seems to be a right of passage. It always seemed to me that it would take a certain kind of confidence to display a message or an identity so prominently everyday. (Note: this is why I don’t commit to slogan t-shirts). It also seems to be a right of passage because I don’t know how these stickers seem to magically find their way into people’s hands.
Recently, I’ve been feeling a little bit of that confidence in the values I want to embody and the version of myself I want to work towards being. So, I felt like it was time I earned my stickers.
Or rather, it was time I embraced my inner child and made them.
In the spirit of embracing my inner child I took inspiration from my 15 year old self who covered (some may say vandalised) one side of a desk in the art room I spent every lunch in with apple stickers. It was my way of claiming a sense of belonging. Plus, fruit stickers are the coolest.
So I did a little bit of research into vintage fruit stickers, then just got drawing. I used the basic oval and pull tab shapes as a basis then filled them with things that meant something to me. Largely, I worked around two themes being a quiet soul and design research. There not universal themes. As I mentioned in my last post there might not be all that many introverted user researchers out there. But these were stickers for and about me so I kept it personal.
I now have my own fruit inspired stickers, which I’m using to mark out my space of belonging even if I only have a hot desk.
It felt really good to make something just for myself. I couldn’t stop ruffling through the sheets when they came in the post. They’re now proudly displayed on my own well beaten macbook and my notebook, and they’ll probably make it onto any new office supplies I get. If there’s one thing I’ve learned hot desking across offices, if you don’t mark your charger it will be borrowed, never to be returned.
I think making these stickers was a bit of a turning point for me. I’ve talked a big talk about making work for myself in the past, but never really followed through. But the joy I got out of having something I had made and wanted to use was so huge that I’m prepared to say no to other people and put the things I want to make first.
I have another couple of projects in the works as well as a big overhaul of my online ‘branding’ for the want of a better term. So I’m hoping to share a few more of these kinds of posts soon.
