We all know that "how we spend our days is how we spend our lives", and for this mega side projects issue, we spoke to some prolific creators from the DesignUp community (and beyond) about their projects. Considering a side project? Some links at the end to help you get started, and a showcase of awesome projects from the DesignUp community.

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PS: DesignUp also started as a side project and the many facets of DesignUp today (podcast, the deconstruct report, this newsletter, the school, the conference) continue to be a side project for many 😉 which also explains why we take time doing things, sometimes get distracted, or are not hyperventilating on profits or growth...

Chasing your dreams with side projects — medium.com

"Side-projects are the labours of love that no one asked us to work on; that sometimes we don’t have all the skills to pull off; but they reflect our love of the craft, and our passion to carry it through — and most of the time, the need to carve out precious time to execute..."

Some prolific creators from the DesignUp community talk about their side projects.

🌟 Side Projects Showcase

Stories Without Pictures by Nidhi Gupta & Gautam Rao — storieswithoutpictures.com

Nidhi and Gautam were inspired to start this podcast of immersive audio stories for children about a year ago. In just a year, Stories Without Pictures has evolved into a fortnightly podcast with a buzzing community.

Audiogyan by Kedar Nimkar — audiogyan.com

Audiogyan podcast was started in 2016 by Kedar when he couldn't find much documentation about design philosophies of designers in India. Get in touch if you want to collaborate with Kedar!

Product Disrupt by Darshan Gajara — productdisrupt.com

Self-taught designer Darshan created Product Disrupt to make his UX design resources public, so anyone could teach themselves to design with these free online resources.

Thousand Faces Club by Dharmesh Ba & team — www.thousandfaces.club

Dharmesh has been helping build communities for a few years and here's his recent venture.

Mapping Patterns of Violence Against Journalists in India by Rasagy Sharma — www.thepolisproject.com

This eye-opening collaboration reminded Rasagy that design can have a huge impact in highlighting patterns and ideas that are being suppressed.

💝 The Wise Fireflies of Data — worldwisdommap.com

Explore heartwarming wisdom from a unique study of life lessons from 195 countries and a data art piece that summarized what the team learned. A project by Rasagy Sharma in collaboration with Project Fuel.

🐥 From the community

A few young designers from the community also sent us their side projects. We'll be sharing one project each over the next few weeks.

Pika – Create screenshots and browser mockups quickly — pika.style

Rishi Mohan built this cute mockups utility to avoid all the manual effort he was doing on Figma.

🪴 Cultivate your side projects

Artist Dates

Try the Artist Date by Julia Cameron, renowned author of The Artists' Way, to jumpstart your project. It is a once-weekly, solo expedition to explore something and have fun - think mischief more than mastery. These dates spark whimsy and encourage play.

Tips for Making It Work With Your Creative Collaborators

Adobe Creative Residents Isabel Lea and Aaron Bernstein on what goes into making a partnership magical.

🍳 UpSide from DesignUp

Need a dose of inspiration or a friendly nudge to get your side project off the ground? We're starting a virtual monthly gathering to discuss our side projects, beginning April 3rd.

📩 To join in, fill in this form by March 31st.

Stay healthy and stay inspired,

@jdallcaps and @soosixty