A Labor of Love: Designers and their Side Projects

A compulsion to author and make things ‘on the side’ permeates the design community. Designers spend nights and weekends laboring over pet projects, out of love.

Last year during our professional development program Bridge, we noticed many interesting side projects from the designers in our community. We’ve seen side projects that inspire, side projects that help accelerate careers, and side projects that grow into wildly successful companies, like Pinterest. So we were curious: what makes a side project tick? Is there a recipe for success or is it something more magical that drives these initiatives?
Over the next couple of weeks we will present a variety of designers and their projects to share their strategies and motivations—culminating in a celebration in San Francisco in August.

→ Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and search our hashtag #sideprojectlove

→ Tell us about your side project here.

→ Listen & add to our collaborative playlist on radio with songs from musical side projects. Think: Panda Bear’s relationship to Animal Collective, or what the Tom Tom Club is to The Talking Heads.

→ Download the most popular interview from our Designer Founders series with Evan Sharp, the co-founder of Pinterest.