Watch the timeline in your head, while you design! Designing things is always a non-linear process, but linear over time. You start somewhere, go forth and back, sometimes break and never finish. Designing is an endless motion. That’s why life is also a design.

For years i tried to make “very innovative things” and skipped the “copying others”-mode. I now changed that mode very consciously. When doing new things i try to start exactly duplicating the work of someone i respect and let the work evolve from that point. In copying others you get a good feeling for the problems, the process and the success. If you let the work evolve, than you are doing your own thing - even if you don’t wanted to do so. It just happens. It is always yourself who make the things. (This thought maybe originates in Drummonds/Caughtys[the KLF] “The Handbook”.)

At the same time, there are always many parallel processes happening. For an example: i am now for years into DJing and that’s why i have very personal view on DJing and an own style on DJing. Now i just started to think about designing t-shirts. On one hand i try to do things, that are like works i really like and respect. On the other hand this work will surely be influenced by other grafical stuff i made and still make. By techniques i explored and that are suitable for my needs. Every product tells it own story.

The thought of the origin really originated in a talk i had with Martin Donath from stadtgruenlabel. We talked about music, involving the workprogress. He mentioned, that copying your idol can be a very instructive and satisfying thing.

Maybe this is the same thought that Digitalverein was aware of when he made the track called “Origins and Evolution” (released in Thinner). Jörg Schuster says about his music: “Each of my tracks is a reaction of my brain to most different influences”. The headline of this entry originates in this track.

Now let these thoughts evolve in your head, and think it in a global scale.