The Design Process

Are you a new designer? Are you a Designer looking to move away from your specialty and explore other design fields? Do you look at other designers and wonder, “How come my designs don’t look like that?” Well good news, it’s time for you to focus on your Design Process!

The Design Process is the most essential tool you can use for your design work. A Design Process will keep you on track throughout your project. It is the most important aspect for Designers. It makes the difference between mediocre Designers and Excellent Designers.

My Experience

It took me years to discover and prioritise my Process. I first started in the Creative Industries as a Graphic Designer. I focused on the wrong things. Things like my style or how much I should incorporate Illustration in my work. I looked at other designers and wondered how come my work didn’t look good in comparison.

This carried on for years until I got involved in Industrial Design. The focus on the Design Process became more prominent and changed the way I work forever. My work improved tenfold. It gave me not the confidence to tackle different design projects but also the skills to do so.

From there I have been working to develop a process that can incorporate other design fields. This process focuses on the transferrable skills and techniques between design fields. I’ve named mine the Polymathic Process. It changed my view on Design and it will change yours.

Find Your Self-Awareness

Every Designer has a Process, from Graphic Designers to Fashion Designers and everyone in between. Each designer’s process is unique to them, like a fingerprint. Having an understanding of your process brings self-awareness. With that comes a new way to view your design work.

By developing your Process, you’ll have a set of ways for tackling each new project. Your personality will come through in your work without effort.

What is a Design Process?

A process is a checklist or set of steps you use to go through each project. Some projects will need more from your process, which is up to you and your client to decide.

The Polymathic Process is a collection of steps that work across all design fields. I’ll give you a brief introduction:

Interp

Short for Brief Interpretation. This is about making sure that you have interpreted the brief and the same as what the client expects. This is the first stage of any project when you and the client discuss expectations from the project. This includes deadlines, and what needs delivered at the end.

It’s not the most exciting part of the project. Every designer would rather be sketching out ideas or prototyping instead of planning! But this stage sets the stage for the rest of your project. Luckily this stage shouldn’t take long and once it’s done it will have a positive impact on the rest of your project.

Verify with your client how you’ve understood the brief. Get them to verify that your understanding is correct. Set measurable goals and deadlines, and start working on your Design Specification early. This will help you understand what you need to research and why.

Research

Research is one aspect of every project that gets lost in the nitty gritty details. Research is what will confirm your solutions and will inform you about who will be using your design. How will you know if your design solves that problem without knowing what the problem is?

If you’re lucky, your client will have some Market Research ready. That will help you understand more about the problem they’ve asked you to solve. But it’s always good to do some for yourself. That way you will have a solid understanding of what the problem is and how to solve it.

If you have to do your own research then go out and get the research first hand over finding it over the internet. Go and meet experts, go to museums, and observe your target audience on their home turf. You’ll get more inspiration than you would by scrolling through Pinterest.

One of the best examples I have of getting research was for a speaker project. The client wanted a speaker design inspired by a Scottish musician. I went to the only supplier in Glasgow. Talking about Scottish artists with the guy at the store, he told me to focus on timeless musicians instead of current ones. If they got cancelled, the expensive speakers become worthless. This led to me focusing on classical musicians over pop stars and changed the outcome of my project. I wouldn’t have had that insight without going to that store.

Use secondary research. Use books, the internet, and social media, to find out things that are more difficult to find in your local area.

Most set a deadline for when you need to finish research or you’ll be stuck going down rabbit holes forever.

Concept Generation

Now we finally get to the fun part! Put a pen to paper and start sketching ideas out for your client.

Start with ideation. With ideation, the best rule of thumb is “Quantity over Quality,” at least at first. Your first idea will not be your best idea.

Draw out as many thumbnail sketches as you can until there’s nothing left in the mental tank. By coming up with a higher number of ideas you’ll be less judgemental of yourself and spend less time dwelling on one idea. It could be anywhere from 12 ideas to 100 ideas. It will depend on your client’s expectations and your deadlines and how fast you can get through this stage.

Once you’re satisfied you’ll put out as much as you can. Narrow down your best ideas into Concepts to bring to your client. Don’t bombard them with all your thumbnails. Show them the ideas you’re most excited about and let them decide where to move forward.

Development

Once you’ve concepts your client is happy for you to move forward with, it’s time to start developing those ideas. This is the stage when your design will go from an idea to a final solution.

This is when you should be considering what output and start Prototyping. Test out your ideas by checking their output. Prototyping means something different in each design field, but it’s about making some rough versions of your idea to test them. You continue development until something resembles the final solution.

If you’re a Graphic Designer check to see if there are any spelling mistakes or how well it prints out. If you’re Interior Design you might make a scale model of the layout of the space you’re working with. If you’re an Industrial Designer you would build a low-quality version of the product you can demo.

Detail

Once you’re sure your design is ready. Create the final solution. The Detail stage of the project is making sure your final design is ready and prepared to send to the client.

Talk with the people responsible for the output of your design. Do you need to talk to manufacturers? Do you need to set the files up in a certain way? Are there certain ways things need to be for your client?

Pitch

When you pitch your final design, preparation is key. Think about what questions your client will ask and prepare a response.

Focus on WHY your idea is the way it is and use the research from earlier to validate you.

Promotion

Once your project finishes, spend some time evaluating what worked and what didn’t. By doing this every project your process will become more streamlined. You’ll see where you need to improve. This will help you decide what parts of your process are working and what aren’t.

Make sure you and your client end on a good note, that way you may get a referral and repeat business.

Upload your design to your portfolio and promote your work.

If you want to find out more info, you can get this free guide here: Download Link

Why you need to look into Your Process

As you begin your process you’ll discover where your strengths and weaknesses are. When I took a proper look at my own, I could notice where my motivation was at its weakest. I came up with new techniques to make that stage of the project more fun.

Knowing your process means you know more about yourself as a designer. You’ll be able to market that knowledge to promote yourself, in your portfolio, to potential clients, and other designers.

Where and When should I use it?

Your process is an ever-evolving tool to use and adapt for a project. It should be revisited and adjusted at the start and end of every project.

Keep a note somewhere of your process. I chose a Google Doc so I could add techniques and arrange them by the project stages. When you hear something new add it to your document.

4 Ways to Improve your Design Process

Write it down (Often)

I’m a firm believer in keeping a note of my work. If you want to find out why in this post. In that post, I mention that whenever I learn something new or get some advice, or discover a technique I’ll write it down. The same goes for my process.

When I was figuring out my Polymathic Process, I kept an evolving note in my Google Docs. I would add to it when I discovered a step that was the same across all Design or would impact my process.

Learn about other Design fields

To get the most out of your transferable skills you should learn about and respect different design disciplines. There’s something to learn from every designer. Everyone will have their way of doing things. You might see a technique done in one field that isn’t done elsewhere. You could incorporate it into your process.

When I meet other designers I love talking about their process. If knowing your process makes you self-aware then by asking other designers about their process you’ve already proved yourself as someone who takes design seriously. Hell, it might even shake off some of that Imposter Syndrome!

Learn about Design Semantics

There are some universal elements to Design, these are Design Semantics. Humans are creatures of habit and pattern recognition, it’s how we form our decisions. We interact with objects in certain ways, like we know we have to push a button to turn gadgets on. The body shape of a car can mean the difference between cheap and luxury. People’s eyes will view a poster in a certain order based on hithe hierarchy

There are tons of examples, but the best way to get used to it is to look at yourself. Take an object to your left, and pretend you’ve never seen it before in your life. What has the designer done to show how you should interact with it?

Make it personal

Your process will always be unique to you as a Designer. You’re on your design journey. What you add and remove from your process will depend on the design content you learn from.

Let your process be something that evolves and  tailored to each project.

Takeaways

The Design Process is fundamental to any designer and now you have the tools to develop and enhance your own. The Polymathic Process is a process that you can use to try your hand at any design project, even if it’s in a different field.

Comment below about your Process!

Nollie Design is on a mission to showcase the transferable skills between all design fields. We help specialised designers develop into Design Polymaths, designers who can work within different specialties from Graphics to Gaming, from Interior to Industrial. We do this by demonstrating the Polymathic Process.