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On Thursdays at 15 UTC we're going to be hosting a weekly design challenge. Come in to Ink Spot

A random topic will be provided for people to design on. I'll host and pick topics the first few weeks but then open it up to anyone else who wants to throw out a topic.

It could be a logo, a new way to think of a letter, a character, an interface, a background, or anything else. A quick brief will be provided on the spot.

20 minute time limit on designs, though we aren't going to be strict at all. It doesn't have to be a finished design either, could be a pencil sketch - it could be a close to final product. Whatever your skill and time allows for.

Why 15 UTC on Thursdays? Cause I had to pick something. I won't change this for at least a few months since consistency will be key. Hopefully this is late enough our friends on the West Coast will be awake while early enough our users in Europe will still be around too.

I hope everyone will come in and participate.

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  • 2
    will we be allowed to include cat memes?? – DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ Aug 18 '15 at 15:22
  • @Darth_Vader if it fits the design challenge – Ryan Aug 18 '15 at 15:25
  • 1
    @Darth_Vader you now need to find a way to make cat memes fit every challenge – user56reinstatemonica8 Aug 18 '15 at 16:57
  • @user568458 hope you'll break down and join us in chat for it! – Ryan Aug 18 '15 at 17:08
  • Should we suggest possible challenges to be semi-randomly selected in the answers section here? – user56reinstatemonica8 Aug 18 '15 at 17:22
  • @user568458 nah. I'll do the first one or two at least and then open it up to whoever wants to lead that week and we can take turns. No reason to post here though, not supposed to know ahead of time what the topic might be. Taking a similar approach to how writers.stackexchange.com does their weekly writing exercise. – Ryan Aug 18 '15 at 17:28
  • 1
    @Dom I would prefer to stick to this format now. Perhaps later we can revisit your idea or you can start your own event if you'd like. – Ryan Aug 21 '15 at 15:08

15 Answers 15

Active Oldest Votes
13

9 September 2015

Topic was:

You're supposed to design a cover for 1984 by George Orwell in the style of one of the covers at this link:

NYTimes - The best book covers of 2014

The dimensions of the book are 10.5cm x 17.5cm

If you haven't read it, the backup book is Ghostbusters (in book form)

Topic came from First Draft / JustVolley

Marcusdoesstuff

enter image description here

FirstDraft

enter image description here

JohnB

enter image description here

Go-Meek

enter image description here

DA01

enter image description here

Ryan (me)

enter image description here

Joojaa

enter image description here

Rafael

enter image description here

4
  • 3
    I think this is by far our best turnaround, thanks for all those who attended! – DᴀʀᴛʜVᴀᴅᴇʀ Sep 10 '15 at 16:11
  • 1
    These are all really, really impressive for a 20 minute challenge. Bravo! – Vicki Sep 10 '15 at 20:22
  • Some top notch stuff there! Kudos for this weeks challenge. – Dom Sep 10 '15 at 23:31
  • Awesome work! Some are quite thought provoking... – bemdesign Sep 11 '15 at 1:41
11

17 September 2015

Topic (borrowed from here as suggested by DA01):

Go to Wikipedia, hit random. This first article you get is the name of your band.

Go to random quotations, pick a quote. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page will be the title of your new album.

Go to Flickr's "Explore the Last Seven Days" Creative Commons page. Choose a picture from here for your album cover.

Zach Saucier

Available in JSFiddle form! Wiki page / quote / image

JohnB

Wiki page / quote / image

CreationEdge

Rafael

First Draft

DA01

Vicki

Yisela

Wiki page / quote / image

Janus Bahs Jacquet

Ryan

attribution Raita Futo

6
  • 1
    I removed my contribution because I used an image that is definitely not allowed to enter SO's standard copyleft license. – Vincent Sep 18 '15 at 9:07
  • Good works all and thanks JohnB for making sure it still went off and such! – Ryan Sep 18 '15 at 12:47
  • @Ryan You accidentally inserted mine and yours between Yisela’s artwork and Wiki/quote/image links. (Also I just realised mine can be read as “all in to kill again”… no comment!) – Janus Bahs Jacquet Sep 21 '15 at 20:23
  • @JanusBahsJacquet ah didn't realize that was part of hers. Fixed. You should be able to edit things yourself I believe, not 100% sure the rep needed to edit in Meta so I could be wrong. – Ryan Sep 21 '15 at 20:25
  • @Ryan Nope, needs more rep. “Suggested edits are not allowed on non-tag-wiki posts on meta sites”. Will have to wait a couple of decades till my meagre participation here rakes me up a few thousand rep points. ;-) – Janus Bahs Jacquet Sep 21 '15 at 20:32
  • 2
    @Janus I've converted the post to CW, you should be able to edit it now. Thanks for pointing that out, we'll do that in the future so anyone can edit their submissions in if needed – JohnB Sep 21 '15 at 20:43
9

24 September 2015

Topic:

The challenge: Design a t-shirt for GD.SE!

I've put together a bunch of assets to try and help speed things along for you. You can download them here. The GD.SE assets file are a derivative of one that Dom put together with some added separations and notes.

The rules: very loose.

  • The shirt template is white but please feel free to choose any color you like.
  • Don't worry about print requirements, your creativity should be the only limit.
  • You do not have to design both the front and back but both sides are provided in the template if you would like to.
  • All files are RGB, since the results will be posted on the web it's fine to stick with that. But if you'd like to switch to CMYK or spot colors, by all means. No bonus points for that, though.

T-shirt template courtesy of wpround.com.

JohnB

JohnB's design

Zach Saucier

Zach Saucier's design

First Draft

First Draft's design

bharat

bharat's design

DA01

DA01's design

Rafael

Rafael's design

chanduc

DA01's design

6
  • 2
    Late entries welcome! Set a 20 minute timer for yourself and pop in to chat to share your results or edit this question to include it – JohnB Sep 24 '15 at 16:07
  • 1
    Now we get to vote on which one we want to the the official one that we can order... right? :D – Zach Saucier Sep 24 '15 at 20:51
  • +1 to DA01 for “make the logo bigger”! – Janus Bahs Jacquet Sep 25 '15 at 0:08
  • 2
    Very nice tees!! And I'd buy DA01's and Chanduc's in a heartbeat. – Yisela Sep 25 '15 at 9:58
  • Real nice! Think I like @JohnB the best since it really incorporated the back into the design and brought in the teal. Would make a sweet Cycling Jersey too! Rafael's use of different colored sleeves is a cool option too. – Ryan Sep 25 '15 at 14:01
  • Awesome designs everyone, some of them remind me of an Ultimate Frisbee Jersey. I think it would be really cool if we could buy a GD.SE shirt. – AndrewH Sep 25 '15 at 20:01
7

1 October 2015

Topic:

Its nice making big designs or square designs but often we've got to work with less than ideal specs. Make a 160px wide by 600px tall Skyscraper ad (as defined by the IAB). For direction let's all make this ad for a Ford F-150.

Press kit if anyone wants it https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/multimedia.ford-automotive-products:fna~us~trucks~f-150~2015-ford-f150.html

First Draft / Vincent / JohnB

      

Ryan / FirstDraft (second entry) / Chanduc

      

Rafael / bharat

3
  • Nice diversity in the topic choice. This one seems difficult. – Dom Oct 2 '15 at 18:16
  • @Dom It certainly was! – Vincent Oct 5 '15 at 11:28
  • @FirstDraft second entry: Hahaha! (Also, you're fired!) – go-junta Oct 9 '15 at 6:10
6

20 August 2015

Topic provided was "G"

Matt Rockwell:

Matt Rockwell

JohnB:

JohnB

go-me:

Go-Me

marcusdoesstuff:

marcusdoesstuff

And my own submission:

ryan

1
  • 1
    Nice input! Pity I couldn't attend, will be there next week! :D – Vincent Aug 21 '15 at 13:46
6

October 8th, 2015

Make a single-colour icon for the UX element 'sort list items'. Icon must be roughly square-ish

First Draft

enter image description here

Yisela

enter image description here

Zach Saucier

Available thorugh http://sketchtoy.com/65994728

Ryan

enter image description here

Vincent

enter image description here

Yisela (second submission)

enter image description here

JohnB

enter image description here

Wrzlprmft

enter image description here      or         enter image description here

2
  • could someone do something on this, with the idea of "cutlery drawer"? – benteh Oct 8 '15 at 16:33
  • My icon would be similar to @FirstDraft. That'd fit well as a small icon on top of a column! Nice challenge by the way, original challenge idea. – go-junta Oct 9 '15 at 6:14
6

October 15th

The assignment was to go to http://randomlists.com/random-words to get twelve random words. Pick any one, two or three of them in any order to make a beer brand. Design a coaster for that brand.

JohnB

enter image description here

FirstDraft

enter image description here

Ryan

enter image description here

Vincent

enter image description here

DA.

enter image description here

fadelm0

enter image description here

Zach Saucier

enter image description here Created on and available through http://codepen.io/Zeaklous/pen/ZbaEyO

5

3 September 2015

Topic provided was the most recent Flickr Portrait that allowed modifications:

Weekend in Madison, WI by Jodimichelle

JohnB:

JohnB

My own:

Ryan

Vicki:

Vicki

First Draft:

FirstDraft

1
  • The Sam one is great, haha – Zach Saucier Sep 3 '15 at 19:46
5

5 November 2015

Topic was:

You're tasked with designing a character based logo for a new mail service called Sansmail. They'd like it to have some kind of bird of prey cartoonish character and their name in comic sans

Topic came from ZachSaucier / Ryan / Joojaa

joojaa

enter image description here

JohnB

enter image description here

Ryan

enter image description here

Vincent

enter image description here

FirstDraft

enter image description here

ZachSaucier - GIF, code + demo

enter image description here

5

12.11.2015

Draw a isometric bunny. A damn hard request.

Vincent:

enter image description here

Ryan:

enter image description here

Joojaa:

enter image description here

Go-Meek:

1
  • 1
    Joojaa really shows their 3D skills here. Very nice. Good challenge to. – Dom Nov 14 '15 at 0:32
4

27 August 2015

Topic provided was "Logo for your SE name"

My terrible submission - so bad at logos:

enter image description here

JohnB:

enter image description here

And newcomer First Draft / Just Volleyball:

enter image description here

2
  • I added the border at the last second so it would be more suitable as an avatar—only later did I realize that it makes it look like an Adobe software icon :P Oh well! – JohnB Aug 27 '15 at 17:28
  • @JohnB We'll call you JohnBdobe for now on! That actually makes sense. – go-junta Aug 28 '15 at 8:14
4

22 October 2015

In Honor of Back to the Future today today's exercise will be to do a design for Parkinson's Disease Research. Could be animated, static, css, java, illustration, whatever you like and any size. Just needs to promote Parkinson's and if you want to incorporate Back to the Future into it than that's cool too

michaeljfox.org

Can get the Michael J Fox Research Foundation logo from that site if you want to include it in your design

Vincent

Ryan

2

19 November 2015

The theme with help from JohnB is World Toilet Day

worldtoiletday.info/artists

Let's use a 6" x 6" space to create something to promote Sanitation and World Toilet Day. I'll start the timer in 5 minutes to give everyone a chance to glance over the site.

JohnB

Vincent

DA01

Ryan

2

January 28th, 2016

The assignment was to make a monogram out of two random letters, for example generated by random.org.

Benteh

letters: VK

enter image description here

Vincent

letters: ZN

enter image description here

1

29 Oct 2015

Alright the idea is make two designs of square proportion. One using only Black Circles and one using only straight Black lines If you need more direction consider a logo for yourself, your favorite company, or favorite toy. But that's just if you need something more defined to help get started

Vincent

Ryan

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