Autumn, 2013. Already quit the job, getting ready to study overseas. Then somehow got talked into joining an architecture database project, or something like that, by an old uni friend, on behalf of a colleague of hers. Looking back, a textbook case of “Just do the work first, we’ll make it worth your while later!” Didn’t think much of it back then, though. Young, naïve, easy-going. If something sounded fun, why not? Money and all that could wait.

The brief: background illustrations for the entire website, one for each functional page. Sounded interesting enough. Got to the fourth or fifth drawing, still only at the concept stage, and then… got bored. Partly from gradually losing any sense of where the project was heading, with barely any direct guidance from the person running it. Mostly just back and forth through the friend. Partly from plain inexperience: could see the drawings getting worse, could feel the whole thing heading into a dead end, but had absolutely no idea how to fix it.

Left it sitting for a while. Eventually, after enough chasing, sent over everything (finished, unfinished, still figuring it out) for feedback. Then, silence. A long silence. Long enough to stumble across the project’s old Facebook page seven or eight years later, only to find a new name and furniture for sale.

Anyway, all that rambling just to introduce the first sketch for this project that went nowhere. Also the only one worth feeling happy about. The starting point for a whole series of sketches over the years, each marking another stretch of wandering. Looking back, never would’ve guessed, from that very first sketch, just how far, and for how long.