There is a recognised fact that play amongst children is a place where they develop a whole range of skills. Just as you played as a child, playing as a web designer or developer is also essential to growth. Giving yourself space to experiment and play is not always the easiest of things. There are times when you have to just focus on bringing money in and play seems about the furthest planet next to completing the dealine and left of a series of all nighters. Balancing time to play might seem like something not worth the time or the money you will not be earning. This is a bad move though as you can often find you increase your ability and even find new ways to finance your time through play.

Most web designers or developers have a blog and in many ways this personal site is their playground. Having a project that is about experimenting and stretching yourself in any ways is always a good thing. It is how you learn the limits and also find new ways to do things. I always like to have at least one play project on the boil. Playing through projects is not the only way though, just by simply setting aside a few hours a week to try something different is a great way of finding new approaches to work.

I encourage others to experiment and rise above the day to day at least once a week. You never know what you start playing with can often turn into a fully fledged project. A great deal of successful websites started out of play. Allowing yourself the freedom to explore can result in interesting and innovative approaches. So why not just experiment a bit more and see what happens. Maybe just start a project because you can and work on it along with your bill paying work. You never know what will happen when you have nothing to loose and develop a more casual approach to experimenting with the work you do. Make a design just because you can not because you are getting paid for it.

Most designers started this way through playing and with the need to design and just by doing any design they could. It is a sad fact that this enthusiasm for design can fade as the daily grind of producing on demand for cash seeps in. With development this is also the same when in the start you coded just because you could. Freeing yourself from this and just exploring is a really rewarding thing to do and can act as a ignitor to your design or development urge.