My favourite part of the design process is to make prototypes. It suits my personality. I’m a dreamer and I like to figure things out. The problem is that often results in a lot of half-finished projects.

Last year my personal focus was to finish things. But knowing myself I also started building in a bit of playtime into my schedule every day.

The importance of playtime

Creativity

It’s the equivalent of staring at clouds. It may not look like you’re doing work but your brain runs in the background and all of a sudden, bam! New ideas start pouring out.

Improving skills

With this one I draw the analogy to the importance of play in the development of mammals. Similarly to, say, a lion cub, learning to hunt while playing. Playtime is important to me in developing my skills as an artist.

Note: this is quite a big field of study, so I apologise for the passing reference.

Failure

A.K.A Lessen self-imposed pressure. The short of it is, you’re not setting your expectations to finish something that’s polished enough to sell. Because you don’t worry too much about the end product you focus on the process and learn something along the way. (If you’re lucky.) Worst case scenario – you had some fun.

Evolution

It’s important to the evolution of your work. If you always consider yourself to be ‘on the clock’ while creating it stifles the progress of your work.

My playtime

Today I spent my playtime prototyping some bracelet clasps.

• I’m really happy with how it turned out.
• My idea’s evolved – I know how to make my rivets invisible now. It’ll look better.
• The catch is a bit short, so I need to tweak that for comfort
• I’m testing the piece. I know it’s easy to open and close with one hand.
• I used to be a rubbish riveter. But I’ve been practising a lot. This was however the first time I riveted metal onto a soft object. So it was good to play around with the rivets to see how much leeway I have with leather.

I’ve been struggling to get some of my other bracelet designs to work. This base piece will solve those problems and hopefully I can turn those ideas into beautiful pieces now that I’ve figured this base design out.

Now, I really hope my new copper solder will arrive tomorrow. Because it will look so much better if the catch is soldered on.

The best thing about it? This one belongs me! Mwaahahahaa.