If you don’t use it, you lose it – a designer’s perspective
Image generated using Dall-E 3.
Have you ever heard the idea that “if you don’t use it, you lose it?” This is a statement that gets used in reference to a number of things. If you don’t use your muscles in the gym, you lose them. If you don’t use a second language often, you lose it. If you don’t practice a certain math equation, you lose it.
For content creators, the same can be said. Your creative ideation muscles need to be used often in order to keep them sharp. If you don’t use them, you will lose them.
The best way to work all parts of your designer brain is to go through the process of creating something. So, I decided to take part in a design sprint. Essentially, this is a crash course in design thinking. You condense every step of this process into just a couple of hours in order to develop your creativity.
I’ve talked at length about the importance of design thinking for anybody doing creative work. But in essence, it forces you to emphasize and understand the problem that you are trying to fix. From there, you clearly define said problem and create iterations of solutions before prototyping and testing your work.
A process that could normally take weeks, months, or years will be condensed to two hours for the sake of this exercise.
The Process
I met up with my fellow Quinnipiac University alum Juliette Lapointe to discuss our experiences as undergraduate students at the institution.
After a few minutes of talking, I concluded that one of the biggest problems Juliette dealt with at the University was parking. She often had a bad experience trying to park her car on campus – dealing with full lots and rude people, occasionally making her late for class and other school events.
After learning this, I took a few minutes to sketch out some possible solutions to this problem. It was clear that her main pain point was that there are not enough spots for the number of students enrolled at the school. Additionally, the shuttles were not a good alternative as they often took longer, were crowded, and took you far from everything important on Quinnipiac’s main campus.
After a brief ideation session with feedback from Juliette, we concluded that the best solutions to the problem would be creating a parking garage at one of the far ends of the campus and adding more shuttles stops throughout the campus. This would 1) increase the number of parking spots on campus by a lot and 2) make traveling around campus much easier and more convenient.
Final prototype of the new parking garage location and optimized shuttle route.
Conclusion
This exercise was great for getting into the mindset of a professional designer quickly. I definitely recommend it to anybody who is just starting out or is feeling like they are in a creative slump. For those who are not familiar with the design thinking process, this is also a really great introduction to it.
A design sprint can be a great way to flex your creative muscles and keep your skills sharp. I encourage you to click the button at either the top or bottom of this blog to get a better look into my design sprint and process.
Hi! My name is Peyton McKenzie.
I am a professional graphic designer, photographer and content creator.
I encourage you to explore my portfolio to get a better idea of the work I create. If you are interested in working with me or have inquiries of any kind, don’t hesitate to reach out over email.
