“brain storming” has new meaning
Grid. Zertifizierung. Achor point. Prinzipiengeleiteter Unterricht. Sketchnotes. Lettering. Fertigkeiten. Commission. Fortbildung. POD-Website. Business plan. Light table. Vorbereitung. Oxford comma. Deppen-Apostroph. Workshop. Komposita.
All these words are flying around in my life right now, and they pretty much define what I do every day. Some belong to the creative realm, others to the realm of teaching, and others still belong to the realm of language and language correction.

a blank page is an empty classroom
Even though I sometimes feel like the three jobs (or four, depending on how you define them) that I juggle in my freelance life have absolutely nothing to do with each other, in reality they’re pretty intertwined.

Last year, I took a master class in Munich one weekend a month. During these workshops/seminars, I learned all about the subtleties and details of good design, layout, and typography.
This year, I get to spend one weekend a month alternately in Salzburg and Vienna, in order to learn about the subtleties of teaching languages to adults.
The topics are different, the personality types of my fellow participants are really different (teachers!), and – I have to admit – it’s not as fun as it was in Munich. (I mean, come on – drawing letters all weekend? Nothing beats that, at least not for me.) Yet somehow, much of what I’ve been learning when it comes to teaching can also be applied to design, and vice versa.

Are you gridding me?
Let me give you a quick example. This past weekend, the topic was how to plan a lesson. Educationalists agree: first you define a goal, and then you search for material and activities to reach that goal. The method professionals use to do this is a grid. You step back from what you actually want to do – which is plan an activity and make your own material for it (laminating!) – and think about the whole lesson: What will happen before the activity? What do I have to think of as a teacher for the activity to actually work? What do the students need to know in advance in order to do the activity? What will come afterwards? etc.

All weekend, I felt like I was having a déjà-vu: I had heard all this before. Good designers also work with a grid. This grid is very systematic and not at all creative – or so it seems. You also have to take a step back from the actual creative process and lay down a grid that will potentially include everything that could be changed or added to the layout in the future – or might not be. That can be a somewhat challenging task that can twist your brain in all sorts of knots. But the beauty of it is: once you have this grid, the design sort of effortlessly places itself on the page.
When we learned about this grid in my typography class, I was totally and utterly frustrated. I felt like throwing my computer against a wall, huffing and puffing, and storming into the corner to never layout a single thing in my life. Ever. Again. With time, this got better, of course, and now I accept the fact that if you spend a good amount of time and effort on a grid that works, everything afterwards happens more quickly and easily.

So what happened this weekend? I worked with the grid. I took a step back and thought about what I wanted to do, rather than just jumping in and doing it. All around me, people were grumbling, and I couldn’t help but laugh up my sleeve. I didn’t just learn how to efficiently plan recyclable lessons. I also realized, once again, the importance of a grid for good design and layout.

one step backwards, two steps forwards
There are aspects of work that may seem uninspired; it feels like you’re wasting time, going backwards instead of forwards. This is what I call the “grid phase”.
Sure, it’s a lot of fun to just start drawing letters when you work on a hand-lettering piece. But without the grid phase, these letters won’t complement each other and your design will look muddled.
Sure, there are teachers who don’t prepare their lessons and just walk into class and swing it. But whether or not their students will reach their goals will be more of a gamble.

And really, you can apply this to any type of work: if you have a to-do list for the day, you’ll know what you need to work on and can efficiently get to crossing things off the list. If you translate something, you should read it first, then get an overview of words and phrases needed for the topic, and then can begin translating. If you work on a hand-lettering design for a client, you should research letterforms and linguistically analyze your quote in order to know how the words can be grouped together. Only then can you begin actually sketching and drawing.

use time wisely
This is a valuable life lesson for me; I never want to waste time, and can’t stand people who don’t get to the point. My biggest thing is to use time wisely. But the thing is: sometimes it’s more efficient to take a step back and endure the feeling of wasting time in order to save time later. Added bonus: the work that follows the unendurable planning phase is not only done quicker, it’s also better than if you skip the planning phase.

And: only with planning and a ‘grid phase’ can you then stray from the plan and do something crazy and spontaneous that will still work. But that’s only possible because of all the thinking and planning you put into that first grid. Like Pablo Picasso said: “Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist.”