My Design Process
Before the design process can begin a few questions need to be answered. What are the goals of the project? What are the deliverables? Who is the design for (the audience, or the demographics)? Answering these questions makes the designs more effective and easier on both the client and the designer. Also before designs can begin an agreement must be reached outlining the price as well as the conditions for the project.
Equipped with the answers from the client I then research the competition, themes and styles usually by pinning thing on Pinterest sometimes through google images. Once I know how most people approach a similar project to what I am creating I will know how to do something unique. That usually gives me ideas about themes or styles that are rarely put together, like organic shapes and technology. Then I start looking at photos that fall under the themes I pick nuggets of inspiration from those images. Around 40 images is what I shoot for, once I get going it can be pretty easy to rack up many more images than that. All that inspiration fuels my pencil to start sketching.
When I sketch frequently I am just putting ideas on to the paper. It is very tempting to just skip this part of a project, but it makes the project go a lot smoother and become more unique. By the third sketch I find something interesting to start playing with for a few sketches. Some sketches are just small tweaks of prior sketches, while others are new concepts or approaches. I keep sketching until I find a few good options, then I move to the creation of the designs in the project.
To start the creation phase of the project I usually take a photo of the sketch to put it into Illustrator or Photoshop. Next I trace the digital version on top of the original. After its traced I begin to tweak it and look at it from different angles to push the design further. Also by looking at the design from multiple angles and distances this will help screen for potential mistakes or unintended shapes. For example Iams cares website domain. The original Iams Cares url read iamscares.com or "I am scares", which is not what a conserned pet owener wants to see when they look for help. I then send it to the client for a review starting the, hopefully brief, feedback loop between the designer and the client. Adjusting and refining the design to fit the client's and ultimately the consumers goals and preferences.
The moment that both the client and myself have been waiting for: shipping the product. Upon final payment I release the full resolution versions of all the graphics to the happy client to use.
