30 Minute Design Challenge: Element Icons

I recently participated in a fast-paced problem solving design "game" as part of Design Philadelphia, which inspired me to not dwell on perfection, but rather to make quick, impulsive, imperfect choices. Today, I sketched (by accident, really) these little goofy thumbnail doodles. They started out as nothing more than 2 second line explorations.

After I saw the set of 4, I saw the weird potential in the sketches and decided to push them further. I set a 30 minute timer for myself, and started working. Utilizing my initial sketches as the basis, I developed a set of 4 icons/illustrations representing the 4 elements. I wanted to keep the expressive and organic shape of the original sketches, and developed a 3 or 4 color palette for each icon. 

The results aren't perfect, and that's ok. The creative rush of working towards a goal in such a tight time frame led me to make choices I might not normally make (for better or worse.)