I set out to make stickers that all felt like they were cohesive (reflective of my design style), and something that I, or someone I knew, would want to put on their laptop or waterbottle. I set a limit of having the stickers be a minimum of 3 inches on one side, so I couldn't fudge on the details. I gave myself two weeks to accomplish the task.

First I began sketching. I had lots of ideas, but only moved ahead with a few of them. 

I began building in Adobe Illustrator. Along the way, I had little experiments with a few of the simpler sketches as well, though most of them were just experiments. However, after discussing with a friend the awful feeling of hearing your alarm clock go off in the morning, I had an idea that because a concept in Illustrator without being sketched first. Then enough people liked it that it became one of the options I refined. 

In this process, I asked mentors and fellow designers what they thought. One of the most helpful pieces of advice was on the sloth- to take the strokes off completely, and to push a shadow concept I was experimenting with. Doing so got it a lot closer to what I was trying to accomplish without realizing that's what I wanted. 

I worked on refining these over several days, trying several different formats and variations. I tried gradients, heavy strokes, just outlines, more of a sketched feel, and eventually began finding styles that I liked. 

In two weeks, I created a set of stickers that all felt visually cohesive (all reflecting my design style), making them at least 3 inches wide. I have had several people who I have shown ask for a sticker when I print them, which will be my next step. I am going to try to print vinyl so the stickers hold together and will be weather and scratch resistant. I put a lot of effort in here, so I want to make them last!