The power of the 100-day design challenge
And how I nailed it
How many times have you made a New Year resolution like picking up a new hobby, or hitting the gym? And how long (or short, :P) have you stuck to it? I had the same apprehensions before starting the 100-day challenge. But I made it. And here’s my story.
Winter 2019 was the last quarter of my Master's program at Univ. of Washington. Having only one course in this quarter, I had ample time and thought of doing a side project — 100 Day Design Challenge. Each day, for 100 days straight, I created a piece of vector illustration or vector-based animation and uploaded it to my social media channels.
I still remember the first day — I got up, turned on my laptop and added 100 artboards on a new Sketch file called ‘100 DAY CHALLENGE’.
From January 12 to Apr 19, I enjoyed every bit of my journey. It was as tough and challenging as I had thought, but I gained much more from this 100 days exercise than I had imagined.
The original purpose of the challenge was -
- Improve my graphic design skills. It’s a vital skill for a product designer, but I felt I was not good at it. I could benefit more from doing intensive practice than by watching tutorials and drawing something occasionally.
- Get more proficient with my design tools like Sketch, Adobe Illustrator, and Principle.
- Prove a point to myself. It’s like throwing a challenge to myself to be dedicated and persistent. The harder the challenge, the more I enjoy.
My journey before and during the 100 days
Just get started
I had been slightly disconcerted for a month, since the time I had the idea in my brain -
Am I ready?
What if I don’t have enough time for this on some days?
What if I made something ugly because I don’t have an art background?
Will it be helpful for my career?
Soon I realized I would not be able to do or learn anything if I kept trying to answer all the above queries. The worst case could be giving up on Day 2. But that’s still better than being scared to start on day 1.
Once I started, everything seemed to be figured out and I got a whole door open in front of me.
Exciting 1st -35th Day
During the first 1/3 of my journey, I was so excited and ambitious about my daily illustrations. Making illustration was the first thing right after waking up.
Initially, I learned new skills by following tutorials for a week, and then I gradually started creating things from heart. There were tons of idea in my brain — I made my own logo, made the Chinese painting series and the Lunar New Year series.
My motivation and confidence both peaked somewhere around the 30th day. A flurry of things happened that started instilling a sense of achievement within me — I received my first ever inquiry for designing someone’s logo, the audience who liked my posts started growing bigger in size by the day, and people had started tagging their friends on my posts asking them to check out my designs.
Tiring 35th — 70th Days
Having become more proficient with my tool, I attempted to go pro, like making bigger scenes or photo-based vectors. They were joyful but time-consuming. It was getting difficult to spend 3 hours on one piece everyday.
Also, as my quarter was nearing its end, I was getting busier with my final projects and my portfolio. Making illustration slowly became the last thing I did before sleeping.
During this period, I usually started my daily design at 12am and wrapped up by 3am. It was tough, but I did feel inner peace while designing at midnight, especially after having had a long day.
I tried to kill two birds with one stone, by taking advantage of the challenge to make illustrations for my portfolio, which added some more flavor and personality to it.
Refreshing 70th — 100th Days
With both my motivation and confidence reaching a nadir around the 70th day, I decided to try something new to gain some fresh inspiration and motivation.
I explored Adobe Illustrator for advanced vector skills and Principle for basic motion design. It worked really well, and I felt fulfilled with the new skills I learned everyday.
After conquering the toughest days, it was just a matter of course that the number slid to 90+ and 100. But most importantly, conquering my laziness for 100 days in a row gave me a sense of satisfaction and achievement a lot.
During the process, I realized I had gained much more out of it than I had originally expected -
- Being engaged with the designer community — Now my Instagram feed is filled with amazing designs, from which I learn what I can further work on.
- Being productive — Even on my most unproductive and anxious days, I got at least ONE productive thing done.
- I ended up adding more flavor to my portfolio by making illustrations for projects where there was really a need for it.
- Building confidence — I experience the Imposter Syndrome a lot. But receiving compliments for my designs, and also for being brave to take up this challenge, and being dedicated and persistent is making me overcome this syndrome gradually. Acquaintances that I hardly spoke to came to me and told me I am doing something meaningful and worthwhile.
- I now have a story to tell. Fan is no more just another Graduate student. “She is the one doing the 100-day challenge!”
Tips for your 100-day Challenge
#1 DON’T EVER think about skipping even a single day
A secret — I have two 100-day challenges. The 1st one is the one you are reading about right now. The 2nd one is posting my daily work on my Twitter. One day I was exhausted and got done with the illustration at 3am. So I thought I would post it on Twitter tomorrow. But I kept procrastinating for the next 10 days.
Believe me — Making it up tomorrow is much harder than creating a small one today. Turn off your inner critic because you can’t make perfect illustrations for 100 continuous days anyway. If you are not happy with today’s work, you always have a tomorrow.
#2 Use social media as the motivation and supervision
I posted my design on my Instagram. It was like a commitment I was making to all of my friends, and therefore I had to make it happen.
Thanks to my friends who came to tell me that they were waiting for my post everyday, and some of y’all liked each and every single post of mine. These things not only motivated but also supervised me to keep going day by day.
#3 Be clear with your goal
When I looked back on the first 10-ish days, I found my Instagram page looking unorganized and inconsistent since I had made random things everyday. The designs didn’t share any similar style or format. So I tried the same style for 3 days. Then I moved away from it because it doesn’t help to develop various skillsets.
The goal that I had set for myself was more about improving my skills and being determined and persistent rather than making something cool and showing off. When I was clear about my goal, I stopped caring about the peripheral things and was able to focus more on the design.
Questions I was asked frequently
Where did the idea of a 100-day challenge come from?
I first read about the challenge a long ago on Sunny Wang’s blog, a designer I look up to. I thought of doing it after following my friend Beijuan Miao’s suggestion, who had herself done this challenge to improve her visual design skills.
Where did your inspiration come from everyday?
The special days and events are my constant inspiration, like the MLK day, my graduation day, Seattle’s snowstorm, Chinese New Year, or Notre-Dame de Paris fire. Having had a PR and Marketing background, it’s pretty much my instinct to do content around these days.
During the days I didn’t feel like making anything, learning new things was my charger for inspiration. When I ran out of inspirations, I would follow tutorials for a couple of days to learn new skills or new software. Besides the tutorial, it’s my daily routine to take a look at Dribbble and Behance to stay inspired. There are amazing designers and their work is out there.
Ever thought of giving up?
Yes I did, during the busiest couple of days around the 70th day. But I thought I was already way more than halfway there. Giving up at this stage would cost me much more than staying up for 2 more hours to make an illustration.
Any resources and tutorials to help us get started?
- Tiantian Xu’s blog
- Tutorials on EnvatoTuts+
- Illustrators on Instagram that I followed - Mark Conlan, Coen Pohl, Vanila Design, gfx.mob, Gal Shir, Elia Colombo, DeeKay
- Dribbble
- Behance
Thanks for reading — I’m a hybrid product designer with the background in Public Relations and Marketing. I’m currently looking for full-time opportunities on the West Coast, United States. Feel free to get in touch via Linkedin!
