Chances are, if you are reading this then you have also been following us on social media, so firstly THANK YOU! And, if you have been watching closely during October, then you’ll know that we’ve been posting lots of black and white ink drawings. Each one very different to the next, and all seemingly, totally unrelated. What was this daily drawing challenge all about? Inktober of course! So, we have decided to focus this post on a short round-up all of our Inktober activity and help to spread the joy of a little creativity…

Inktober is an annual drawing challenge and is something that everyone can participate in, arty types and non. This meant that we could coax Pistachio team members who would usually only reserve pen scribbles to maniacal meeting notes to have a go at producing some arty pictures.

The way Inktober works is that there is a prompt list to follow with a new word for each day. These words range from the imaginative ‘Dragon’ to much harder words to visualise such as ‘Tread’ (I know right?). The rules of Inktober are very simple; everything must be hand drawn in ink (you are allowed to draw in pencil before if you want) and then all you have to do is share your creations and post it to social media with a hashtag.

Considering this is a design agency full of people who love to get creative, you would be surprised at the lack of time we usually have to draw for fun, which is why it was a great challenge to get behind and forced us to step away from work and let the creative juices really flow. The majority of our design work is created on a mac using a mouse or a Wacom tablet, which in its defence is much more like the traditional pen to paper style of drawing, only it’s all digital and each mark is represented on the screen. It was therefore a good chance to get us all involved, asking to see each other’s progress and taking a little time out of the day to participate and mix things up for our social media.

As you can see from our efforts here at Pistachio, the outcome was great. We had a combination of quicker, simpler sketches that focused on the quirkier takes of the word prompts, plus some imaginative drawings which wouldn’t be out of place in a children’s story book. There were also a few (ahem did someone say show offs?) who went above and beyond, producing real pieces of frameable art.

To get a sense of how everyone found the Inktober challenge, I have asked some of our team to elaborate on how Inktober was for them.

Emmy:, Designer:

I enjoyed Inktober because I found it therapeutic and it was inspiring to see other artists interpretation to the different themes every day. I also liked how lots of people from around the globe showed interest.

Chris, Creative Director:

I like doing Inktober because it forces you to get out of the comfort zone of “apple z-ing” all the time (for those not in the know that’s designer lingo for undo/ erase). It’s also nice to step away from the screen and get back to basics.

Marie, Director:

I found that I enjoyed taking time out of my day, listening to some chill sounds and relaxing (even if I wasn’t very good at it). I also got to try out my apple pencil, although that was harder than I thought it would be. What was also lovely was seeing all the levels of skill that people and children had taking part – it made it a lot easier to put your own work out there.

Tracee, Account Manager:

It was great to get back to basics and draw with a pen instead of a mouse for a change. And fun to think of fresh ways to tackle each topic. Although result-wise I was seriously outclassed by the talented team here at Pistachio!!!

As for me, being relatively new in the graphics world, but with a background as a professional illustrator and fine artist, I was super happy to be able to get back to my roots and preferred medium of pen and freehand drawing. It was refreshing to take a couple hours to myself to just draw and think of an interesting take on the prompt word. I think it was a great way for us all to inject some creativity into our office environment and encourage each other to just have fun – which is after all what drawing should be all about! I am a firm believer that being creative is good for the soul!

If you’d like to read more about what we get up to at Pistachio, you can check out the rest of our ‘Thought’s right here.