Why it’s important not to get stuck in a loop

When I finished my first Sticker Pack, I wasn't particularly happy with it. Frankly, I thought it sucked. I thought I sucked. Reminding myself of the "Done is better than perfect" mantra, I released it anyway. This helped kickstart a whole new mental state and project phase. I was able to enter the focus testing and feedback stage of the project.

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During this stage, I was able to note the successes and short-comings of the Kawaii Grad Cap Sticker Pack, that would help me create a better pack in the future. I could observe how people were using the stickers and note, what they felt was lacking. It also motivated me to create a new pack in the first place. Although, this had always been the plan, with my disappointment in the design of the first pack, I had lost motivation to move forward with this plan. Being able to improve on my design and create a better product, I was back in the game. Instead of being stuck in a creativity loop, that led me from starting something, working on it, it being hard, quitting and by the end of it still sucking at it, I entered the Creativity Spiral.

The Creativity Spiral

Anthony Jones touches on the creativity spiral in his talk at Adobe Max 2020 talk. He talks about creativity not being a talent but a skill you can learn. You improve on your skill through continuous practice. This school of thought goes hand in hand with Tom Ross’ “Done is Better Than Perfect” and the 3 Point Perspective mantra “Ship Happens”, I mention in my blog post Why It’s Hard to Complete a Project. If you stop working on something because it got hard, you will never get better. If you keep working on something indefinitely, until you perceive it as “perfect”, you will never get it done. If you don’t “ship it” and tell people about what you are doing, you won’t have anyone holding you accountable for finishing the project.

Starting on the creativity spiral will get me from feeling like I suck, through practice, past the hard parts of the process, to sucking a little less each time I practice the skill, until I am actually good at it. Each project cycle will produce a better outcome.

Where do we go from here

I wanted to keep it simple for the first pack, so I wouldn’t get overwhelmed by the project. I like the idea of a character being the focal point of a sticker set. I chose the mortarboard or graduation cap as the character, because it embodies being a student for me – even though I never got to throw a graduation cap in the air, when I graduated from uni, *sniff*. A large portion of my audience are students or Philomaths. The mix between a character that allowed for expressing emotions through the eyes as well as with the help of the tassel and a link to my audience, made the Kawaii Grad Cap the best balance for the project.

Sonja character jumping in and out of screen

Sonja Character waving

Sonja Character Thinking

For the next set, I would like to create a pack more closely related to my own brand. I already have a Sonja character, that I use across my branding. She waves, she jumps and she contemplates life as an animated puppet of my creation. After some design tweaks, I could easily create an animated sticker set, instead of just a static one. Logistics of moving from static to animated will also not be a hurdle, as I already know how to export animated stickers for use in various messengers. It was part of my research, when I created the third part of my 3D Lettering Online Class Series.

Practice to Suck less

Having created a, so to speak, first draft sticker pack, I can now implement all of the knowledge gained and the skills acquired into the next set. I can upgrade the difficulty level without feeling like I am out of my depth, since I have gained first experiences with the medium and usage of the product. Being able to tell myself, I’ve done this already, takes the fear out of stepping into a new project. I feel more empower in improving on the product and less sad that the first draft was not to the standard I would have liked it to be.

I am glad that with the help of the “Done is Better Than Perfect” and “Ship Happens” mantras, I am able to leave the negative creativity loop behind and step into the positive creativity spiral. I am looking forward to my abilities improving and one day being good at it.

Be the spiral, suck less.

– Sonja

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One Comment on “Why it’s important not to get stuck in a loop”

Why I am an online teacher – Blog

7 January 2021 at 17:40

[…] As with any task, once you enter a spiral, instead of getting stuck in a loop – see my post Why It’s Important Not to Get Stuck in a Loop for more on that – you’ll end up getting better and learning more. Because I had […]

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Great explained tips that every motion designer should know. Thank you :)

Great teaching style; very clear and thorough. Some very high level best practice advice in here too. Looking forward to the other two lessons in this series and the other classes by Sonja.

Great tips which can shorten the path for beginners to become faster animators.

Learned loads of helpful tips and tricks to make my workflow much more efficient - thank you!

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Great contents and value in your channel ! ;) I have to recover the old streams on the motion side !

Love your stuff! I would love to see some short-form video content from you in the vein of tutorials or showcasing your workflow.

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Really enjoying these live streams!

Really cool to be learning new things watching you Sonja. Keep it up!

Thanks for sharing! It's so great to see other people's workflows, and that tip about the multiple passes to get the hand-drawn effect is really helpful!

Thanks for the Stream. Good work, as always. It is a lot of work just for the setup of the animation.

That was a nice process to watch! Thanks for sharing.

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