Well, this is embarrassing, even by my characteristic blogging infrequency. Factually though, quite a bit has transpired in this lull between articles (all of which I'm happy to leverage as an excuse). Chief among these completely legitimate reasons were continued global travel for Nansen, being a participant in the creation of a baby Dauer, and starting a small tee shirt brand, UX Shirts.

The last in that excuse chain forms the basis of why I’ve written this piece. Despite how much we may adore our “day jobs”, having a creative outlet inclusive of personal passion projects is a requisite toward anti-burnout. To that point, for my part, client call frustration bore some unexpected fruit in the doodles which enveloped copious note taking.

In the midst of passionate defense of thought processes and organic usage, a rough sketch concept poured forth from my Wasserlack 2H. Like the great champion of the grid TRON himself, we as advocates fight for the users. Further post-meeting lead-based iterations evolved into late night Illustrator concepts, and the I Fight for the Users design was born. While having done a few tee-shirt designs over the years, the prospective process of sourcing a print house and setting up a proprietary e-commerce storefront, inclusive of branding and photo shoots, became as much creative fuel as the I Fight design itself.

Culled from the interactions, tools, and soundbites that permeate our daily process, UX Shirts is a fabric-based, Shopify-fueled love letter to creative folk the world over. The 3 shirt designs at launch leverage the implements and outputs from User Experience as design elements in and of themselves.

To Shopify specifically, I can't say enough about the e-commerce-based CMS. An incredibly robust, intuitive, and featured-packed system that was, and continues to be, a joy to use; particularly for a hard-goods-selling novice like myself. I can only gush about it so much (...without compensation), so if you had any ideas toward selling something online, major thumbs up to Shopify.

On the design front, Workshop appropriates tools (Post-its, writing implements, tacking devices, etc.) from the hands-on, dynamic discovery sessions we all know and love. A singular symbol is formed from these elements. From the product description:

In a world where navigational disarray and muddled user journeys are king, only one user advocate can stop them.

A core understanding of redesign objectives will rise...
...preconceived notions will fall.

This summer, cover that hideous deformity in style. UX Shirts proudly presents: Workshop.

On the other hand, Professor UX spawned from a lunch time conversation at the studio. A silhouette-based persona icon becomes anything but, playfully commenting on what we as user advocates do on a daily basis. Across all designs, every shirt is printed with a custom inner label, and ships with a branded promo card.

Again, I can't stress the power of the personal project enough. There's not much more heartbreaking than taking a passion, having it become commotizied, or losing the taste completely. Outlets are so dubbed as we recharge from them in the healthiest of ways. So, swap out the next night flapping your thumbs away at the PS4 for an evening of sketching and inspiration. The next application of Make My Logo Bigger cream will seem far less painful.