Forum Moderators: not2easy
There are a godzillion of em'. Millions and millions of graphics, everywhere for every conceivable subject, every theme, style colour and size. Killer logos, amazing billboards, cracking banners, subtle patterns, clever little indications, signs, magazines, stunning layouts, t-shirts… But sadly there are so, so many that lack impact, are visually rather dull and use cliché’s. The web is rife with it. So how do we design the perfect graphic for every situation? I thought I'd start a checklist to ensure we never have to cross the road to mediocrity again.
"But I am a programmer I hear you cry!" "I can't do that, I flunked art at school".
Believe me, THAT is not an excuse - we are talking about design here people, not art. Design and art are very different; designing graphics is not art, and thankfully not as subjective either.
So where to begin? Let me take you back a bit, beyond the birth of the web, in fact let's predate Homo Sapiens and travel to a time when our creativity was at it’s most primeval, the creative place you may consider yourself inhabiting today. With meagre tools, a basic grasp of them and a little inspiration, the Cro-Magnons (feel free to correct me here I flunked history) produced incredibly simple, evocative designs that have stood the test of time. Mans first newspaper - the wall painting. Simple yet bold and probably as amazing to see drawn then as we see the Internet unfold in front of us everyday. What were they doing here? Was it art? Highly unlikely, time wasting lead to an early grave, this was more likely to be an educational commentary to aid their fellow cave dwellers in the finer concepts of meat location and capture (a common theory argued very adeptly by an anthropologist friend of mine). There we are then, millions and millions of years practice in the conveyance of simple messages through simple imagery. And thus (all hail) graphic design was born.
So even Nyuk Nyuks were able graphic designers without the incredible tools we have at our fingertips, they just had a message to convey, we call it the design brief. Put simply: Design is the production of a visual that communicates the brief – and there in lies the answer - it's in the question – the brief, reading and understanding brief.
And that’s the first rule. Understand your brief. Read it, read it again and again till you have memorised the reasons why you are to produce this ‘perfect’ graphic. This might seem obvious but so many people begin a project not really understanding the one thing that will make or break the finished article. If you don't have a written brief - create one. It’ll scythe through the production time of a simple icon and add order and substance when creating a complete website.
Right then, what’s next?
Research. Simple and uncomplicated. Do your research. Who, what, when, where & how? That is not too complicated to do is it? Easy peasy. Next….
This is where the hard bit comes in – Ideas (don’t press the back button just yet).
“But coming up with them is impossible! How do they do that, it’s soooo clever.”
Well, not really, you can do it too, trust me. You just need inspiration. Moves quickly into the next question;
“OK, but where the bloomin’ heck do I go for inspiration [webmasterworld.com]?” Thanks to hawkgirl.
So it’s everywhere, absolutely everywhere and it's free. The back of a slice of toast, movement of the Goodyear blimp in the sky or lyrics of your favourite kids poem, or indeed on your favourite websites. All you have to do is open up the senses. Get yourself 360o vision, touch the textures, smell the aroma, take in the sounds - listen to it all, can you hear it? It is everywhere.
So inspired, we can now sit down we begin to pen ideas.
“Aha!” You say, “But I can’t draw.”
You don’t have too, I’m no Rembrant. You can write your initial ideas down. I guess you could record them on tape, whatever way you feel comfortable with, You are simply taking the ideas you’ve got, listing/blending them in an cohesive order. Just make sure you keep these initial mutterings, you will need to refer back to them often. If you don’t keep this handy, along with your brief (My memory is rubbish so I write it all down) you will forget what you are striving for, miss the turning and end up wasting mileage only having to make it up later.
“So this bit’s like writing a recipe”,
Great! Lets get baking…..
STOP.
Not yet. Your about to commit a design sin, bypassing what I consider the an integral part of the process – criticism. Yep, feedback. You cannot under estimate how important it is to get other peoples opinion before you get into the nuts and bolts of the design, it'll help you make choices. Really listen to their answers and responses, write them down cos you’ll find more often than not that they’ll inadvertently supply you with the spark that really set’s off the design. Something to do with the laymans perspective I guess. If someone who has not seen you at work, all the nuances, the details, the technical architecture, the hard graft, if they understand your plan, then you have winner. (I think it’s best to get more than one opinion. Here’s a simple ratio – small graphic: small test audience. Bigger graphic: bigger test audience…). Dependant on the scale of the graphics involved this can/should be repeated through the development process to keep you on the straight and narrow.
Now you can dive right in. Its fun and will bring all you hard work into a resolved design. This processes and its timings will be always be slightly different here dependant on you medium and output – html, css, video, print etc...
I've found during development that it’s not choices of colours, fonts, textures and all the other fluff that makes a successful design. It’s a thoughtful idea that has had a complete application of the design process to it. All the fluffy bits will seem easy and will fall into place naturally if you get the groundwork done.
Lastly I think its really good practice to look back at what you did. Evaluate everything and tie up your loose ends. It'll make the next job quicker if you identify your shortcomings and success's.
Re-cap:
So that’s it really. Do all this and you will deliver the message in good time. Your bread will be leavened, your route will be free from wrong turnings, and your wall paintings will astound you fellow Cro-Magnons. OK I have rumbled on for long enough. What additions/changes/omissions to this process would you make?
