As I approach the end of week 26 of 2025, I think it’s time to properly share a thing I started back in January. This follows my 52 week projects that I did in 2020 and 2023 but is completely different.
What’s the point
I created a new, semi-daily (realistically, weekly) meditation that should be fun and relaxing. An easy way to make something that a accomplishes a few things: a snapshot of creating at a specific time (journal), an exercise on color (emotion/taste), experimentation with form (constraints, acceptance), and maybe most importantly…a challenge for sustained “interestingness” over 52 weeks. They are sized for 11”x17”, should one of these ever be printed.
The Rules
- Copy the default (“blank”) starter file 👆
- Change only the rotation of each quadrant
- Adjust the fill (images allowed) of the quadrant and page background…or don’t
- Start with the default each time (no copying a previous creation)
- No looking at other finished versions on the day you make a new one
- This should take no longer than 5 minutes, unless chopping up an image (see sidebar page, still testing these out)
The halfway point
Initially before I had officially started this, I was playing around with an option to use a photo instead of solid filled shapes. But it ended up changing the vibe significantly, with less of a focus on overall form and more effort to find an appropriate photo which can be dissected well. I don’t dislike any of these experiments, but they were more time consuming and strayed too far from the purpose.
I thought that by the halfway point I would be so sick of this that I’d feel it as a burden, something I’d barely want to squeeze in each week. But if anything the opposite has happened. I have to stop myself from making one of these every day. Am I repeating old techniques? Maybe. But that’s kind of interesting too. I start to think about why I fall into a certain pattern or gravitate toward certain colors.
For March I used a pure white background. For April it was a yellow background. And June was a black background. That definitely narrows what’s possible which also forces some interesting choices in quadrant arrangement. The most I’ve done in a month is 13 (March and June). The fewest is eight (January and February).
From here
If you’ve been reading my newsletter you’ve probably seen a few of these before. I have no “plan” other than to keep making these. Will they become prints someday? Who knows. A microsite? Maybe. I’ve found that in a 52 week project format the best thing to do is just focus on a single week at a time. I might hate it all by December, but I’ll have learned a few things along the way.
