12 Lessons in 12 Days
As MMC was counting down the days until December 25th, the creative process for Just 12 Small Things was not a breeze. It was a roller-coaster of emotions: fun, tiresome, tedious, exciting, hilarious… you name it.
To recap, Just 12 Small Things was a fun way for us to launch our first project with absolute creative freedom. In keeping with the holiday theme we decided to create a visually inspirational message everyday until Christmas day. Playing off on the ever-popular carol, “12 Days of Christmas” we changed up the content and decided to send inspiring messages to our visitors for the upcoming new year. We started the project in hopes to create a printable 2012 calendar as a Christmas bonus while giving subtle hints of the months each print represented. The creative process was fun, challenging, and believe us, a LOT of work. Although the result to us can be a lot polished than it turned out to be, we succeeded in releasing 12 inspirational messages that viewers can hopefully take with them for every month in the new year.
Here are the Just 12 Small Things broken down into the creative process and some valuable lessons we learned working on this project…
January:
“Run Forward With Your Hope, Dreams, Goals and Ambitions”
First message and first month of the year. Exactly as it sounds, we wanted to convey a message that would have viewers take a big confident leap into 2012. The new year is always about setting goals and resolutions for yourselves so we wanted our first to be a bit bold, and filled with ambition and strength. First project and we were able to tell already that we can work together amazingly well because we excelled in areas the others were weak at and the result was truly a mix match of both our creative processes. Lesson learned? We’re designers, not models.
February:
“Fill Your World With Things That Make You Happy”
To represent February, the sweetest month of the year, we wanted to really convey the love in this month. What better way to do this than by creating an entire world made out of candy and chocolates? Yup, you guessed it – a gigantic bag filled with sweets + two girls = February and its beauty and disasters behind it. True story. Obvious lesson: too much junkfood can harm designers… and make you fat.
March:
“Nature, To Be Commanded, Must Be Obeyed”
One of the more beautiful months, March took a lot of transformations. Starting off with a “Go Green” message, the third page for this calendar required hours and hours of weeding, gardening, and pruning. Lesson learned: too much green can even ruin the “greenness” of an image.
April:
“Appreciate Everything On Earth”
This was by far the “cutest” month, just in time for Easter. The animals were sketched out then made out of little scraps of construction paper left over from past projects. We brought them into the digital world and April was created. Lesson learned: White school glue, although a powerful tool, can seriously wrinkle and ruin thin paper.
May:
“There is No Substitute For Her”
‘Tis the month of appreciation for the females in the world: Mother’s Day as well as breast cancer awareness month— we decided to take the creative route for May and mix match aspects of the two. Using a pink ribbon and a very floral design for the background, we strived to convey a message that hopefully made the viewers think a bit about the women in their lives. The challenge? A long tangle of pink dollar-store-ribbon that just wouldn’t stay still. Lesson learned: Don’t cheap-out on supplies. Quality matters and will save you tons of time and frustration in the end (when you can be doing something more fun— like eating candy).
June:
“Honor Him”
Alternatively, this is the month to celebrate and appreciate all the males in the world. Father’s Day falls into this category and we wanted to achieve a look that was masculine and elegant. A super simple concept is sometimes the strongest in its appeal. Lesson Learned: Sometimes, less is more.
July:
“Accept the Strange, Accept Diversity”
July is the gayest, happiest and by far the most challenging month of the year— this month took an immense amount of replanning, reworking, redrawing, repasting, recoloring, and so on and so forth. Just 3 days prior to the deadline, we came up with a new concept and had to somehow take a message that is so strange and incorporate it into a stranger, fantasy world. This was the month we could’ve used A LOT more time to reach our visual quality target but after hundreds of revisions and 3 frustrating nights, this is what we ended up with. Lesson learned: Ideas are powerful but complex ideas in a short amount of time can be a daunting task.
August:
“Home Is Where The Heart Is”
“Running around different parts of Vancouver and snapping photos” was the name of the game for August. The toughest aspect and the take home lesson about snapping photos of Vancouver in December? You guessed it; RAIN. And bring extra socks.
September:
“Do What You Love What You Do”
September will always be remembered as the end of summer and back-to-school whether you’ve already finished school or not. What more can we say about this project except conveying that passion for doing something you love to do? Lesson learned: Take this message seriously and do what you love… like we are doing now.
October:
“Be Thankful”
The tenth month of the year consists of Halloween and Thanksgiving. Inspired by Tim Burton, we fully went back to basics with just a sketchbook and pencil and created an illustration that showed the “monstrosity” and “hideousness” about Halloween but turned it into something else. Lesson learned: be careful which direction you draw from when you’re using a dark pencil. Your own hand can ruin your drawings.
November:
“Freedom Is Never Free”
Remembrance Day, a time of remembering all those who have fought for the freedom we have today. Mixing and matching illustrative qualities with a vintage poster look, the message we wanted to portray was special. This month really wrote itself out. Lesson learned: we really do have freedom to be doing such a project.
December:
“Everyone Deserves a Home”
The last of the month and fully ready for December 25th. Christmas is a time about being with family, friends, and being truly thankful for the roof over your head, the holiday dinners and really appreciating what you have. Being thankful for what we both had, we needed to convey the message that everyone deserves a proper home, and a proper Christmas. So we grabbed a pile of cardboard, duct tape, scissors, exacto knife and built up some man-power. The final lesson of this project? Sometimes the seemingly biggest projects are the quickest and funnest ones when you are working with a friend that really shares your passion with you.
Thank to all of those who have supported Just 12 Small Things. Lots of lessons and experiences were gained throughout this project and we hope to bring you more creative MMC projects.