100 Days Project: 5 Minutes with Sam Bunny
Sam Bunny is an Auckland-based designer who specialises in brand identity and publication design, and is now working in UX. He is also one of this year’s 100 Days Project participants. Sam is working on 100 Days of Icons with the intention of creating create one icon per day, 100 times over. Sam states that each icon reflects an element of his day. It could depict skydiving, swimming with sharks, or monster trucks, but most likely will be what he had for lunch, what he wants for lunch, or maybe even the weather! We’re now 4/5th of the way through, and recently caught up with Sam to find out how he’s getting along:
Hey Sam, tell us more about your 100 Days Project.
It’s basically a visual diary of my day in the form of an icon. I’ll look at what I did in the day, what stood out, and what element would translate well into an icon. Some days are really slow where I struggle to find something, so the highlight of my day will be what I had for lunch, what I had for dinner, or buying something like socks. Other days could be so packed that I struggle to find one thing that sums it all up well.
Why did you decide to take part in this year’s 100 Days Project? What did you hope to get out of it at the start?
I’ve always wanted to take part in 100 Days, and I had previously done 36 Days of Type which taught me a lot, and enabled me to develop my skills. I thought 100 Days would be a great step up from this and allow me to further improve. I had also just gotten a new job as a UI/UX Designer after being in publishing design for a few years, so wanted to improve on a skill that would help me within digital design. I hadn’t delved into iconography a lot, and really liked the idea of trying to pull something down to its simplest form.
How’s it been going so far?
Days 1-40 went great, I managed to keep up day by day. Days 40-50 I started slipping a bit as I couldn’t find time in the day. I’d still draw my idea daily on paper, but actually getting to the computer was a challenge. Day 50+ is when it started to get a lot harder, and I often found myself playing catch up on missed days.
Can you tell us more about your day job and show us some of your work.
I’m currently a UI/UX Designer at Roam Creative, and have been there for about half a year. Prior to that I was a Designer at Penguin Books, so it has been quite a transition from print to digital design. At Roam I’m working on things like apps, websites and animations. Here are some images of my previous print work, current digital work, and personal work.
What have been the best parts of the 100 Days Project? And what are some of the challenges?
I would say the best part has actually been learning a lot about the small details of icon design. Things like grids, exporting, and file types. Whenever I hit a hurdle, I search up a solution and end up building on that day by day.
What’s most challenging is finding the motivation. As well as uploading my icons to the 100 Days website, I also post them on Dribbble and Instagram, and get great feedback that helps me progress. Another challenge is the themed look I’ve gone for. I’m wanting to push the style more, but can’t bring myself to break up the family of icons.
Do you think you’ll make it to Day 100?
Hopefully. I might get there late, but I’ll still get there!
Do you have any tips or tricks for people considering taking part next year?
I think the biggest thing is making sure your process for creating and sharing is streamlined as much as possible before you begin. If there is an extra step that doesn’t seem like much of a bother now, it will feel like a chore 100 times later. Things like Photoshop Actions, pre-naming artboards, or even setting up a text document to copy/paste title text from should save you a lot of time in the long run.
Thanks Sam.
See more of Sam’s 100 Days Project at:
