Why we sometimes need to change digital to analog

Sounds cheesy, and that's what it is. In the design team at Format D, we are lucky enough to be able to take a lot of creative space in our daily work and see it as part of this. But we also know it all too well: despite the many methods we use to stimulate our creative streak, there are times when we have a thick low phase, we feel screen-blind, have turned ourselves upside down to let ideas sprout, but they don't want to. A good time for us to take a step away from the screen, look around at what other creatives do on a daily basis and leave the office together to look over their shoulders in their offices and learn from them.

And of course, as we all know: projects naturally take priority, budgets need to be carefully considered and there's always something to do. A whole day like this costs money and resources. Nevertheless, we have realized that we need a change of scenery from time to time and that it is worth investing in ourselves and our work by doing things that lie outside our daily business.

Here are a few good reasons for our Creative Breakout Days.

Rediscovering simplicity

The digital world is innovative and fast. That's what makes it exciting for us, we feel like we're in step with the time and have the opportunity to reorient ourselves and react quickly. But at the same time, it can also become too much, too fast.  Analog work is inherently slower, we can't do a thousand things at once, Ctrl Z doesn't simply make up for unsightly mistakes and colors have to be printed to see how they work together. And to be honest, this always challenges our patience and our demand for perfection - skills that, in our experience, can be wonderfully transferred back to digital.

Better problem solving abilities

We have noticed that hands-on work can promote a tactile, practical approach to problem solving because it often requires different approaches to work, longer experimentation phases. This often helps us as designers in retrospect to find solutions that we might have overlooked if we limited ourselves to digital tools.

Human-centered design

The core of good UX/UI design is understanding human needs and behaviors. When we leave the screen and interact with real objects and new people, it feels like we are making “real” connections, renewing and stabilizing them so that our design feels human, intuitive and comprehensible again. In addition, we consciously enter the world of other designers who practice a craft that we are usually not yet familiar with. Learning from all these people also means continuing to develop as a design unit, remaining curious and remembering that a lot of questioning and close collaboration makes the final product better.