Design Process

Step 1: Do your background research: on the company, on the person you will be talking to, on the team supporting the person/company. Find something about their personal life to make you seem personable if applicable to bring up in conversation.

Step 2: Ask a lot of questions.

Step 2.5: Do you understand the project better than anyone else? If you can’t answer the high level questions about this project, then go back to step 2.

Step 3: Find good and relevant design inspiration. Don’t just pick things because they look pretty or appeal to your personal style. (Ex: Jay wants to use floral graphics in a corporate environment because her entire personal branded instagram feed is light thin and happy graphics).

Step 4: Pick 3 design directions. 1 You think matches the brief the best, one similar but not as good (to solidify that option). And one completely different direction (tests the client to decide if what they asked of you is actually what they want). This doesn’t need to be highly polished, you can even copy 3 similar things and tailor to brief just to get an idea of what you need to do.

Step 5: Refine/Iterate + push the client with potential small new options that won’t take away from general direction.