Here is a glimpse into my design process as I feel it is important to have something to guide people when working on a project.
This post is simply to help portray and identify the process I go through for myself and also to help guide my clients to have a bit more understanding of this whole design journey. It generally translates to all aspects of what I create daily, not to say that it doesn’t evolve and grow with each individual project, but these are the fundamentals for me.
Communication of ideas should be at every level of a project progression. From initial discussion, talking about the nature of the project to the input of research, mood boarding and development. Sounds obvious I know but the more you plan the better the outcome, simple right. You can never feel like you’re asking the wrong question, if you feel it needs clarity then it needs asking.
Verbal discussion gets you to lay that foundation for a platform to design on. Really thrash out any questions or uncertainty from the start, get everything that shouldn’t be there ‘off’ the table and then you’re left with everything that should be. Again, clarity is key so not discussing something you think might be ‘obvious’ is creating an assumption that might fall flat later down the line in the project.
Sketching and brainstorming is natural before any research to give your immediate ideas some airtime and open up possible direction to explore from your existing archive of experience. Always start with what you have in mind first, this is where you will keep it original and as a creative there should be plenty up there to rummage around for.
Visual inspiration gives you a path to travel, gathering the research and influence determines which direction it takes and there is so much influence and possibility out there how do you choose the right one? That comes down to me and my knowledge and background of design, what will work for you but for good reason. You only reach that understanding with all these other factors in play though.
Designing when the factors are realised it will put you in a strong position to start working on the project with confidence and accuracy. Make sure you guide and help communicate why something might work better than something else or adapt then elevate an idea to suit the brief. The idea here is to be ‘Adaptable’ essentially it is you providing someone with a vision, technically their vision but using your knowledge and skill set to realise this vision to its fullest.
Delivery of the project. As a designer it is up to me to take all this input from all these sources and channel it into a working outcome that hopefully you’ll love. Visual communication is a powerful thing, the ability to captivate with a design and message is key for any business or company to stand out in an ever-changing digital environment. Cut through the noise with simple, bold, powerful graphics.
In a nutshell this is how it works for me and has done for many years. You can use these levels as project reference and help track progress of the project at hand. Thank you for taking the time to read this, I feel it is important to give a bit more narrative and methodology to what I do here at Hot Sauce Design.
