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What do you mean you “..don’t have a design process..”? You just “…play it by ear..”, or “…go with the flow…”? With-out a clearly defined process your design project can quickly get out of hand - having you chasing around loose ends and uninformed client direction. That could get you into trouble, cost you lot’s of extra time, and end up driving you crazy!
We can’t always control the crazy things the client might request (make my logo bigger for instance), but we can manage the work flow by framing the project with an established design process.
Whether it’s a logo, a website or a piece for print, any graphic design project suffers in the absence of the ordered consideration afforded by a carefully conceived design process.
What is a Design Process?
The term process can be described as a systematic strategy, with established constraints, used to develop solutions to a problem. Two important aspects of a good process is that it is both scalable (can be effectively applied to problems of various scales & content) and reproducible (can be effectively applied repeatedly).
A design process is much the same only the “problem” is more of a “challenge” and while scientific process is fairly rigid, a design process needs to be more fluid, adapting steps & constraints to individual projects easily, while still supplying the basic framework of process.
The key to a successful design process?
Have one. Period. While the specifics of the design process vary from designer to designer, I’ve noticed that one thing remains constant across successful professional designers - they have a process and they use it.
Typically a design process is a series of steps or phases that your design project goes through on it’s way from your first client interaction to the application of the finished piece. It acts as a road map guiding the project from initiation to completion with specific stops along the way.
Steps of a Design Process
Steps or phrases will be different for a logo design than they will be for print layout, or website, but they generally include some variation of the following…
- Brief/Specs - Get client Info
- Research - Get market info & inspiration
- Concepts/Prototyping/Variations - get ideas, work them
- Presentation - show the client
- Feedback/Selection - get client responses & direction
- Revision/Final Touches - incorporate client input, complete project
A sample logo design process for instance may look like…
- Initial Design Brief
- Client outlines general information, type of business, name - Specifications
- Client outlines requirements including preferences, format, and intended use - Research
- Designer tries to better understand the clients market & needs - Concepts
- Designers begins to put their ideas down in sketches or rough mock ups - Presentation/feedback
- Designer presents concepts to the client for approval & direction - Revision/Final Touches
- Designer incorporates any client feedback and makes the logo ready to use
A website design process, of course, will incorporate a number of unique steps and phases related to more technical aspects of the project such as platform selection, usability testing, coding, cross platform functionality and bug testing (to name a few). While print projects will be host to a whole other set of print-specific steps or phrases to their process.
Do you have a design process? Care to share it?
This post isn’t an exhaustive study of design process, but rather a reminder of how important an established process can be to a designer. Frankly I’m still establishing my own processes and look forward to any input or discussion that follows. Please feel free to outline your own process or point out things I might have missed. Post or email any related resources you’ve come across, I’d be happy to add them below.
Other design process steps and related phrases…
- Design brief
- overview of design goal, allow client to communicate their needs/wants - Specifications
- establishing specific constraints & requirements including colors, imagery & format - Analysis
- review design specs & goals, make certain they were communicated effectively - Research
- brainstorming, mind mapping, general conceptualization, inspiration - Concept Development
- visual exploration of ideas including thumbnails, sketching & rough mock-ups - Presentation
- presenting design solution concepts or proofs - Prototyping or variations
- explore out variations of select concepts - Development
- ongoing improvement of select concepts - Testing & Feedback
- subjecting select design solution concepts to specific audience critique - Finishing Touches/Final pass
- clean up work, button up loose ends, cross the “T”s and dot the “I”s - Application
- implementation of the selected solution
Design process related resources:
General Design Process
- Wikipedia: Design Process
- Usability First on ‘Design Process’
- pingmag Talks about the website development process
Logo Design process
- David Airey shares his logo design process
- Jacob Cass on logo design process of top graphic designers
- www.allgraphicdesign.com article on logo design creation process
- www.logodesignworks.com a nice outline of their design process
Web Design process
- Great beginners resource, including design process info
- chromaticsites outlines steps to creating a professional web design
- Adobe.com talks design process
- web-strategist.com on Web design and work flow process
- Garysimon.net Great article on web design process
Illustration Design Process
- psdtuts on the role of sketching in the design process
- Jay Montgomery on ‘Design process’
- Antone on his design process
Related Tags:
Design • design process • Funny • logo design • video • web design
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When I create a website or logo for my clients, I usually do the following:
1. What my client want their clients to see/feel/think of
2. Recap of what my client’s clients want
3. Several Mockup
4. Let them choose one of the Mockup and submit changes
5. Improve the design and see if it projects the see/feel/think
6. finalize, show to client
7. final revision
My latest post..Is 15 Years Difference Really His Problem?
I’ve been following pretty much the same process, but never really formalized it. I like how Airey has his logo design process clearly posted so new clients know what the process is going to be like.
I find myself repeating generally the same emails each time I take on a new project - I REALLY need to be more organized about it
Thank you for that, just got your link through the JCD comments however I never received a pingback from the article you linked to which is strange… oh well. Thanks for sharing your design process.
“The key to a successful design process?
Have one.”
My latest post..The Design Process Of Creating A $40,000 Creative Newspaper Advertisement
I’ll be honest. I’ve been railroaded into complying with client ideas much like the guy in the video.
When I first started as a professional graphic designer I was a pretty soft spoken, petit young female designer who lacked confidence in myself and my work.
It took me a while before I could stand up to ‘clueless clients’ and defend the design choices in their best interests.
Sadly until then I let a few clients run the show and the work suffered for it. I still cringe when I see those pieces.
Not sure about the trackbacks issue, I’ve been playing a lot with my code and settings, so hopefully I’ve gotten it all set to work properly now.
I like seeing the trackbacks and expanding the conversation out to other websites that mention one of my posts - thanks for the heads up, and for stopping by
@ Laurel
I’ve done the same thing before, I think it’s one of those common traps that a lot of new designers fall into.
I did the same thing with SEO early on too, but there came a time when I finally felt confident enough to stand up & stop a client from sabotaging their own project.
That IS why they hire an expert to begin with isn’t it? I mean the neighbors adolescent nephew armed with PhotoShop could slap together a logo, or put some titles on a few web pages, but the experience & expertise of a professional brings it to a whole other level.