One-liner
The "just ship it" home for experiments, sketches, and MVPs - visible evidence that the studio is always making.
| Status | Experiment |
| Format | anything goes, speed over polish |
| Pillar | 02 Building a Studio, secondary 01 Interactive Experiences |
| Role | entertain and inspire first, prove second |
| Platform | Instagram (fast, visual, frequent) |
Description
The comfortable-with-unfinished lane. Sketches, logo tests, AI experiments, half-built ideas, WIP screenshots, and offcuts from client work that would otherwise go unseen. Made to be fast, frequent, and unpolished on purpose: a portfolio-in-motion that shows range, curiosity, and process rather than finished case studies. Light or no branding, often shipped the same day the idea appears.
The breakdown
The repeatable structure (loose by design):
- The thing. Show the experiment. No preamble, no setup - the work opens the post.
- The one line. What it is, or the question it's asking. "Option 1 or option 2?" prompts encouraged.
- That's it. If an episode needs a third act, it belongs in another series.
The one rule: speed over polish. The moment a Playground post takes more than a day from idea to shipped, it's stopped being Playground.
What to avoid:
- Polishing. The unfinishedness is the format; a polished Playground post is just a weak portfolio post.
- Explaining too much. Process commentary and lessons belong in Building By Default.
- Letting it become a dumping ground. Unpolished is the standard, unconsidered isn't - it still has to be interesting to watch.
Source material
- Sketches, logo tests, and quick design experiments
- AI experiments and tool tests
- Half-built ideas, WIP screenshots, and offcuts from client work
- Anything made in the studio that would otherwise go unseen
Monetisation
- Email capture: a "studio experiments" list - people who want early access to what you're making
- Lead magnet: free sketch / template / experiment pack of the month
- Finished experiments sold as micro-products (a logo pack, a Figma toy, an AI prompt)
- Drives affinity that funnels into Design Therapy and consultancy offers
Episode seeds
- A logo test, two options, "1 or 2?"
- An AI experiment that half-worked, shown honestly.
- The offcut from client work that was too good to bin.
- A same-day sketch of something in the news.
- A Figma toy anyone can duplicate.
Cross-references
- Boundary: process commentary and lessons belong in Building By Default (
02 Building By Default.md); Playground shows the thing itself, with one line at most. - Source: Content Series Playbook (2026-07).