I'm further into my design education now, so I've done a fair number of projects. Many of them follow the same general process, and now that I've got it down, I can apply it to any work that I do, not just school work.
The nice thing about going to school for design is that I am given projects to do that have pretty specific parameters. We are given the who, what, where, and why for projects, but the how is up to us. Coming up with all that on my own for personal projects is a little more challenging, but I can give myself as much time as I want for personal projects. At school, projects also come with deadlines to meet. For this post, I'll be using examples of a recent design project that I'm nearly completed with!
The start of every project after being given a brief is sketching. Lots and lots of sketching. It is not unusual for my professors to require up to 50 different ideas for a single assignment. These sketches aren't supposed to be polished and perfect, because the point of having us sketch so much is to get ideas flowing. Our first ideas are rarely the best, so sketching more gets us to the better ideas faster. My sketchbook tends to look like a complete mess, and once I even did a whole page of logo ideas upside down because I didn't realize that my sketchbook was turned the wrong way! For this city branding project, all my initial logo designs were type marks, meaning that the logo itself was type and not some sort of illustration. For branding Tel Aviv, I was inspired by its status as an up and coming city as well as its abundance of Bauhaus architecture.
After sketching, I will generally take my ideas into the computer to work in Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop, or make a mood board and shoot first drafts for whatever the project is. When I'm in Illustrator, this means taking a quick photo of my sketches or scanning them and using the pen tool to get an exact replica of my sketch. Making a mood board helps me nail down the concept I want to go for, whether that be pose or outfit ideas, color palates, or the work of a specific photographer or designer that I want to emulate. Using Illustrator in my process helps me envision what the final product may look like, but I never start with it because then I will be sitting at my computer for eternity messing with one design. Working with good old-fashioned pencil and paper for sketching ensures that I'm generating ideas, not making all of them into masterpieces.
As I zero in on one idea, I make lots of variations of it. What if I take away this line or add another one? What if I move this down and that up? What does it look like in black and white, reverse, and color variations? This is the part that could easily eat all my time if I stray away from my original idea. Having a solid idea for any project means that you have a backbone to go back to when you feel like you've lost direction.
When I have reached my final design, if it's a school project I will normally put together a book that details the entire process from start to finish, my messy sketches and all. I explain every design choice that I made as if I am selling my creation to a client. At last, I can see my final product all together in one place and give myself a pat on the back for all the work I just completed. If it's a personal project, I'll probably post it on my Instagram and add it to my archives.
Something I love about the design process in general is that it taught me how to come up with ideas, and execute them completely. Sure, my work may never be 100%, never-have-to-pick-it-up-again finished, but I can come to a stopping point where I have made something that I'm proud of. This whole process could take anywhere from a day to several months or years, but at least I know through experience that it's worth it.
Thanks for reading!
xx, Hannah