Trust The Process & Keep Trying
Design can be simple and it can be complex. No "great" design has ever been made on the first try. It takes trial and error to get the type of design that just clicks and appeals to your eye but most importantly to everyone else’s eyes.
This is the journey of what I went through to get to my “I Never Lose, I Learn” design.
It was the day of the Super Bowl when the Patriots had an unbelievable comeback against the Falcons. My roommate, Bailey Smith, called the match before it started and had full faith in Tom Brady. We were on the way back from the bar and were on our way back to our apartment.
On the way back home, he was telling me a story about his life and how he never see himself losing but learning from his mistakes. Using that “losing” experience to make sure that he learns from it and to do better next time. In order to learn, you must fail so that one can understand what works and what doesn't work. He really wanted me to use that for an Instagram post, and knowing me, I put that quote into my notes on my Iphone so I could work on it later.
Five minutes later I started working on it. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I did a quick mock up on it and used a city background from my gallery that was already saved. Then, I zoomed in on it so it looked different from the other posts that I did a while back. It was very quick work, but I knew that no matter what, I wanted the golden typography with on the words. The reason being that it is to make it more luxurious looking. Bringing more value to such a simple phrase. Making it simple, yet so subtle. Just remember that this was created in less than 3 minutes on a drunk walk home from the bar. I just needed to do it so that I didn't forget about it later and have it become part of my drunk idea graveyard. And if you don't know what that is, it’s whenever you are drunk and have a random weird idea that comes to you. When you are drunk that idea is the best idea in the whole entire world. However, when you sober up you realize that you can’t remember the drunk idea that you had. It is forever lost in the drunk idea graveyard. Below is how the typography looked without the city as the background. I added the border in just for fun and thought it would make it look more eloquent.
It wasn’t until the next day when I looked at it again. That I realized that I hated the border and the extra line design under ‘learn’. I thought it was unnecessary and distracting to the overall message. It was too cluttered and full of flaws.
For the 2nd revision, I took out that line and decided to place it under the border. While I was doing this I realized that this it was the whole concept of, “I Never Lose, I Learn”. I am learning something that needs change and making it better every time. No failure is a loss, just a chance to get better.
The 3rd revision, I wanted to toss the whole thing out and create a whole new design. I was frustrated because I had the whole design envisioned in my mind, but to transfer that into reality was going to be hard. I almost wanted to toss the idea out. Then I kept on reminding myself, “I Never Lose, I Learn”. This motivated me to keep trying until I got to my goal of what I wanted.
The 4th revision, is when I realized that I wanted to change "don't" to "never". I feel that the apostrophe threw off the balance of the design. By taking it out, i felt that it became much more appealing. I decided to change it up to see how it would look. Lets just say "NOPE". Throw the word out and go back to revision again.
The 5th revision is when everything started to come together. Lets just say that I loved this design and used a border with it. It looked eloquent and fit my taste. This was when I decided to put the saying on a shirt design. It would be on a black shit to make sure that it stood out.
The 6th revision is when I took the border off because it look too scripted on the shirt.
The Final Design. While writing this, I thought the final design was finished. I decided to put that design on the shirt. Now, at this point, I was heavily invested in this design. After a few days, I looked at the design again and noticed another small mistake. It was minor but a minor flaw in your design can throw the whole design off.
The Final Final Design, for real this time. There was still one small detail that still bothered me, the period and the comma did not fit in well with the design. At least to my own two eyes. There’s no point in putting something up that you yourself don’t like, that just seem illogical. Taking the period and comma out of the design made it look so much better. There is a balance there that appeals to the eyes.
The whole concept of “I Never Lose, I Learn” has truth. You should never see yourself as losing but learning to see what works and what doesn’t. This is a positive thinking that can minimize the negativity that is often associated with “losing”. I hope that you see your own failure and loss as a step toward your success. You will make mistakes and the key is to keep trying. This is a marathon and it is simple to do, just keep on doing yo thang.
