I only watched about 3 minutes, but I'm already floored by the amount of work and attention to detail that goes into concepts that eventually get scrapped. I respect the amount of... character? humility? experience? that it takes to spend hours on something, and still be able to look at it with a critical eye and be willing to give it up in favor of something better.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching it; I've never seen the process a designer goes through when creating posters like this. It's what I imagine watching a code cast would be like if you have no programming experience.
"TL;DR it turns out that design is a lot of work, just like code."
The funny thing is that as much work as Idan is showing here, he's making the design process look a lot shorter than it is or can be by only showing part of it, the pixel pushing. Often the art direction (doodling on paper for ideas, surfing the web for inspiration, etc) can take at least as long or even longer, especially if it's a side project where you can wait for the muse to strike.
I like timelapses like these, because often, finished work can appear obvious to people who aren't designers. They can't imagine that it would take several hours to complete something seemingly simple or minimal. But watching a designer work reveals interesting parts of the thought process and the myriad decisions involved.
It’s a lot like programming in that way. I’ve done enough of both that it bums me out when I see programmers looking at designers and saying “what’s the big deal, it’s just drawings” and designers looking at programmers and saying “what’s the big deal, it’s just logic”.
Simple stuff tends to be hard because tiny mistakes are easy to spot.
Like most others in the thread I really enjoyed the time lapse. This reminds me of the popularity of Notch's (Minecraft creator) live stream of his entries for Ludum Dare.
There seems to be a lot of appeal in watching a talented practitioner do their work. Even more so if there is a way for the audience and the "performer" to communicate throughout the process.
Given the number of live streaming services that already exist like Justin.tv I wonder if there is merit in creating an aggregation site that allows people to screencast their work organized under different disciplines.
Incredible to watch.
Offered a rich perspective into your design process.
Demonstrated to me unique use cases of Photoshop.
Documented change in vision and approach.
Showed me how to do simple things I never thought to try.
Made me feel at the end that with enough work, vision, and the creativity to evolve, I too can create something beautiful.
That was awesome. A couple of times there I thought to myself, "he nailed it", but then you went and made it ever better. This is why I will always have a healthy respect for good designers and programmers. It's never done until it's perfect.
