If you've ever stared at a blank screen waiting for a good idea to show up, you've already lost. Good ideas don't arrive — they get excavated. That's exactly what Crazy 8 ideation is designed to do.

What is the Crazy 8 exercise?

Crazy 8 (also written "Crazy Eights") is a core design sprint technique popularized by Google Ventures. The premise is brutally simple: sketch 8 distinct ideas in 8 minutes — one per 60-second round. No refining, no second-guessing. Just generate.

The constraint is the point. Sixty seconds is too short to overthink. By round 5 or 6, you've exhausted the obvious answers and you're producing ideas you wouldn't have reached by "thinking harder."

The online tool: crazy8ideation.com

Running the exercise used to require a facilitator, a timer, folded paper, and a room full of people. Now you can do it solo, in your browser, for free.

Crazy 8 Ideation is a free browser-based tool that coaches you through the full exercise:

Voice coaching calls out each round so you don't need to watch a timer
8 timed rounds of 60 seconds each, with visual progress tracking
Reflection prompts after all 8 rounds guide you toward the best idea
No account, no install, no data collection — open it and start

The tool runs entirely in your browser. Close the tab and everything disappears. No sign-up wall, no email capture, no catch.

How to run the exercise

Go to crazy8ideation.com
Fold a piece of paper into 8 panels (or grab a sketchpad)
Keep your problem statement visible — one sentence, top of the page
Hit Start and sketch one idea per round without lifting your pen
When all 8 are done, pick the idea that surprises you most

That's it. Eight minutes from blank page to 8 rough ideas.

Why it actually works

The research backs this up. Studies on design fixation show high-fidelity work early in a process constrains output — you refine the first idea instead of exploring. Crazy 8 forces quantity before quality, pushing you past the "safe first answer" into genuinely novel territory.

The best ideas tend to surface in rounds 5 through 8 — after you've burned through the obvious.

Who it's for

Product designers and UX researchers running solo sprints
Teams doing remote ideation workshops
Anyone who needs to move from zero to options fast
Students working through design problems

Bottom line

If you need ideas and you need them quickly, Crazy 8 is the most efficient method I've found. And crazy8ideation.com makes it completely frictionless — no setup, no cost, just 8 minutes of focused creative work.

Try it once and you'll understand why design sprint teams use it as a default.