I’ve set myself a UI challenge: 30 minutes a day, five days a week, with real constraints and no client safety net. Here’s why I’m doing it and what I hope comes out the other side.
Whenever I announce a new personal project, there’s a familiar pause. The kind that says: “That sounds cool… but haven’t you already got five other things on the go?”
Fair.
Still, this one’s different. Starting next week, I’m committing to a weekday 30-minute design challenge (with constraints). No open-ended playing around. No endless refining. Just five short sprints a week where I pick a theme, limit the scope, and design something. Then every Friday, I’ll share what I’ve made, warts and all, in Front&Centre.
Why? Excellent question. Allow me to justify myself.
Client work is great. It pays the bills. It also comes with briefs, brand guides, stakeholder opinions, and the occasional email that says, “Can we make it pop… but like, subtly?” In other words, it’s not always a space for wild, unhinged experimentation.
This challenge gives me a sandbox with no client looking over my shoulder. I can design whatever I want, bad ideas, good ideas, strange ideas that might become something later. It’s creative freedom with a timer running.
Constraints are good for the soul (and the portfolio). Thirty minutes is long enough to create something decent, but short enough that I can’t overthink myself into oblivion. This isn’t about perfection. It’s about shipping something, anything, five times a week.
I want to see how far I can push an idea in that window. What does my design brain do under pressure? Does it collapse? Or does it create a colour palette that doesn’t look like a melted box of crayons for once?
Let’s be honest. As a designer who also runs a business, I can easily spend a day responding to emails, adjusting one padding value for four hours, and tell myself I’ll do something creative “after dinner.”
Spoiler: I don’t.
By committing to just 30 minutes a day, Monday to Friday, I’m creating a rhythm that’s achievable, even with a packed calendar. It’s the equivalent of doing push-ups during ad breaks. But for design.
With generative design tools popping up like mushrooms after rain, it’s tempting to offload the fun parts to the robots. But part of this challenge is about getting back to the core: me, a blank Figma file, and way too many fonts.
I’m not designing for anyone but myself. No client feedback. No optimisation for conversion. Just ideas, vibes, and whatever happens in the moment. You might get something slick. You might get a Tinder-style interface for adopting houseplants. We won’t know until I hit Start Timer.
Honestly? There’s a chance this whole thing unravels by Day 3 of Week 2 and I spiral into some kind of font-pairing crisis. But that’s why I’m writing this blog post... to keep me accountable.
I’ve said it out loud. I’ve published it on the internet. That’s basically a legally binding contract.
Every Friday, I’ll post a round-up of the week’s UI challenges in Front&Centre. Think of it as a highlight reel (or blooper reel) of what I’ve come up with. I’ll share the good, the weird, and the “maybe don’t ever do that again.”
Some might be portfolio-worthy. Some might be good Dribbble content. Some will probably just confuse my future self when I look back in a month and wonder what I was thinking with that neon orange gradient.
But hey... done is better than perfect.
If you’re also drowning in other projects and missing the thrill of making cool stuff for no reason, I invite you to jump in. Set your own timer. Pick a constraint. Make something pointless and beautiful.
Or just follow along and laugh at mine.
Week one drops next Friday. Let’s see what happens.
