Riding Makes You a Better Designer

The design is an amalgamation of myriad things born out of the million thoughts crammed in our gray cells, where inspiration takes form in different shapes and colours. You feed your brain with all kinds of stimuli and when you sit down to churn out something, you never know what may actually trigger a thought. Riding gives me every stimulus I may ever need and hones my creativity. And that's just one thing..1. Riding Teaches To Be Disciplined.Both on and off the road. Discipline doesn't curb creativity but it makes sure that what you intend to do, actually sees fruition. Learn to have discipline in doing my research. Discipline in following a plan and going about it or atleast try to..2. To Be Brave.Be brave enough to ditch routine, and take on a new route. Try something new. Learn something different..3. To Be Flexible.I cannot ride with the assumption that my life's going to be sorted with all the facilities I want. I have to be flexible enough to adjust to any kind of adversity or scenario or surprises. Bingo for design (a designer). Flexibility is creativity's best friend and a creative person should always be ready to adapt..4. To Get Hands Dirty and Be Humble.I cannot do 16,000 km without getting some elbow grease, without sitting in the mud on a hot summer's day, drinking water from a tap. Similarly, I will never succeed as a designer if I don't do the groundwork. I need to start at the bottom, to get to the very top. No shortcuts here..5. To Accept Fears.I am human and being scared of the unknown is only natural. But I need to accept it so that I can resolve it. In design, if something is challenging enough to scare me, I should be able to address it, instead of sitting on it, pretending to be cool and making unnecessary mistakes, as no one likes a smartass who knows nothing..6. Makes You A Keen Observer.I observe everything. I now notice things that I wouldn't have earlier and there is such joy in observing. The more I observe, the better I am able to sketch my memories out, the more I am able to adapt them to the design, if at all..7. Teaches To Embrace Failure.When you are on the road, you may have these goals that you set out to achieve. However, you may not see its fulfillment, and the reasons cannot be controlled. And that's completely okay. The best part of failure is that you get a second chance to do it all over again. You know what to expect then, what to do or not do. The same applies to design rejection and failure is as much a part of this industry as glory is. I need to be able to accept, learn and move on. You almost always end up doing better..For the Riders, by a Rider!8. Riding Teaches To Keep it Simple.Don't complicate stuff. Ask any self-respecting designer what they think is the best design and simple will almost always being one of the words that will crop up. Simple isn't boring, simple can be adventurous, simple can be fancy, simple can be exciting, simple can be anything, it's just how simply you are able to convey or do what you want to do.