Digging deep for design inspiration

User Experience & Usability

Close up of gold panning pan with sifting sand. Shallow depth of field with focus on sand flowing over edge of pan into water.

“The search for design inspiration is like panning for gold; we think there’s a nugget out there somewhere, but we have to get our hands dirty to unearth it.”

~ Erik Kessels, ‘Failed it!‘, 2016

It feels as though there’s an increase in the number of shows about gold mining on the TV. Usually featuring people working through freezing or scorching conditions day and night to find elusive nuggets of gold. But when they find one, the reward far outweighs the endeavour.

Failed It! by Erik Kessels, 2016Ok, design is not quite like that, but stay tuned because it’s reminiscent of the book, ‘Failed it!‘ by renowned designer, Erik Kessels in which he draws this analogy.

If you’ve ever watched one of those gold (or other mineral) mining shows, you’ll no doubt have witnessed the miners’ agony as they fail to find what they are looking for over and over again. But often their experience tells them to keep digging until eventually they find a piece of gold that gives them hope and tells them it hasn’t all been a waste of time.

Sometimes, when the gold miners don’t find anything on a particular patch, they recognise the familiar signs and have to make the decision to cut their losses and move on to somewhere new.

Fail to find inspiration

Likewise, design is not an exact science and there are times when, like miners, a designer has to read the signs and accept that a creative idea they’ve been pursuing simply isn’t going to work. 

But wait – even those beleaguered gold miners have the foresight to keep all the material that they’ve dug from the ground for later in case there’s some gold in there that they missed.

Similarly, all that time that a designer spent thinking and all that work isn’t wasted. The trick is not to throw away those sketches, UI designs, mood boards, colour palettes etc. in case they still have value further down the road. A good designer isn’t scared to go through their previously rejected ideas in search of inspiration.

Man holding out golden nugget found from panning for gold.The answer is out there

Failure is a huge, inevitable and unseen part of the design process. But just like those miners, failing is the key to sharpening the gaze; to keep looking or change the approach because experience tells them the solution is out there, somewhere. 

However, if a designer keeps looking in the same place for inspiration, the ideas will eventually run out. Successful design is about knowing where to dig, how long to dig for and when to stop and look somewhere new. Eventually, you will strike gold!

Speech bubbleIf you would like to chat about any design challenges you need help with, please get in touch. 

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