See What 50 Days of Spontaneous Creativity Can Create

The San Francisco-based design company Minted recently tasked 50 different creatives to create 50 one-of-a-kind design projects in 50 consecutive days. The goal was to encourage spontaneous creativity: The artists didn’t know in advance what they would be asked to do.

The challenges ranged from using one yard of fabric to create an artwork to constructing a sculpture with materials from the dollar store to making a bouquet with foraged flowers and found objects (as seen in the lead image). The results are just as varied, spanning drawings and photographs to playing cards and linens. All of the completed projects are now on view at the Yellow Chair Gallery of Van’s General Store in New York City’s Lower East Side (47 Orchard Street) through May 31.

[Day 17: Playing cards by artists Phrosné Ras, Lori Wemple, and Bob Daly.]

The works are available for sale, with proceeds benefitting RxArt, a nonprofit that brings art into children’s hospitals.

Participants were selected by Minted, but they weren’t limited to traditional artists. Actor Liev Schreiber created the first challenge—an “exquisite corpse” painting that other artists added to—with the CEO of Minted, while TV producer Shonda Rhimes created greeting cards (although her original work is not for sale). Andy Spade, the co-founder of

designed a sheet set and also made a splatter-painted dish set with his wife Kate Valentine.

[Day 33: A dining set by painting paper or plastic plates, created by Andy Spade and Kate Valentine.]

The challenge was developed through a partnership with Van’s General Store (the creative agency founded by Schreiber and Scott Carlson) and Spade, who is their longtime collaborator.

On Day 44, Minted sent cameras to three artists—Annie Montgomery, Allison Kincaid, and Angela Marzuki—who captured their cities and favorite things for a “day in the life.”

On Day 23, Minted artist and graphic designer Jess Levitz of June Letters Studio was tasked with creating a drawing of the most recent photo on a friend’s camera roll.

Day 26 consisted of RxArts artists Ann Craven and Daniel Heidkamp making bookmark sets featuring their own original art. Each day, the public was also able to partake and encouraged to share photos of their final pieces.

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