Chapter 4:The Design Process

Elio L. Arteaga, MFAGRA1111c – Graphic Design 1

The Five Phases of the Design Process

Orientation

Analysis

Concept and ideation

Design

Implementation and evaluation

Phase 1: OrientationThe process of becoming familiar with your

assignment, the graphic design problem, and the

client’s organization, product, service, or business.

Art director provides this information to graphic

designer in a document called “the design brief.”

In-house art department supervisor.

Small or large design firm art director.

Freelance graphic designer.

The AudienceThe main relevant group who would:

purchase this brand,

utilize this information, service, or product,

patronize this entity, or

influence others.

The Audience The audience is not “anyone and everyone who wants to buy our

product;”

they must be narrowly defined.• Demographics

• Age

• Gender

• Location

• Income

• Background

• Psychographics

• Attitudes

• Opinions

• Beliefs

• Likes and dislikes

Gathering InformationCollect information about the brand, product or service.

Learn about:

Your client’s products

The company’s goals and objectives

Its mission, vision and philosophy

Its points of distinction between it and the competition.

A graphic designer must have life experience, and must

know a little bit about a wide variety of topics!

Phase 2: AnalysisExamine all you have unearthed to

understand, assess, and strategize to move

forward with the assignment.

The Design BriefWrite your design brief.

Question 1: What is our challenge? Every project

has a goal and desired outcome.

Question 2: Who is the target audience? Identify

the people who comprise the target audience.

Question 3: What is the audience’s perception of

the brand? Assess what the core audience thinks

and feels about the brand.

The Design Brief Write your design brief.

Question 4: What do you want the target audience to think and feel?

Determine one clear reaction you want the audience to have.

Question 5: What specific information will assist this change? Provide facts

and information that will enable people to alter their beliefs and opinions.

Question 6: What is the brand’s personality? Each brand or group should

have a well-defined essence, a core brand personality.

Volvo: Safety

Orbit gum: Clean

BMW: German engineering

Apple: Creativity

Doctors Without Borders: Humanitarianism

The Design BriefWrite your design brief.

Question 7: What emotion will build a relationship with the

target audience? Identify one emotion that people ought to

feel most about the brand or group.

Question 8: What media will facilitate this goal?

Where do the people you want to reach spend the most time?

Question 9: What are the most critical elements and budget?

Determine the visual and text elements required for each

project.

The Design BriefWrite your design brief.

Question 10: What is the single most important

takeaway? Establish the single most important

message to convey in the form of a single

thought.

Question 11: What do we want the audience to

do?

Define the call to action.

Phase 3: Concept and IdeationA design concept is the creative reasoning

underpinning a design. It is the guiding idea that determines how you design—how you create or why you select imagery and typefaces or lettering and the reasoning for color palette selection.

Phase 3: Concept and IdeationIt has a blunt, geometric simplicity, which usually makes words feel cold and analytical...but it also feels warm. It’s substantial yet friendly. Up-to-date yet familiar...And Gotham has another quality that makes it succeed: it just looks matter-of-fact.

--Brian Collins New York Times Blog, Apr. 2, 2008http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/to-the-letter-born/

Phase 3: Concept and IdeationThe Art of Thought by Graham Wallas,

English political scientist and psychologist,

in 1926:

Preparation

Incubation

Illumination

Verification

Phase 3: Concept and IdeationIn 1965, James Webb Young, a renowned

copywriter at J. Walter Thompson, wrote A

Technique for Producing Ideas, where he

articulately explains Graham Wallas’s 1926 model.

Preparation

Incubation

Illumination

Verification

Phase 4: Design“Brainstorming,” a phrase coined by

advertising executive Alex Osborn in the 1930s in his book Applied Imagination:Set aside 15 minutes of uninterrupted time to

come up with as many ideas as possible—do not stop until the time is up.

Don’t judge the value of any idea until the end. Be permissive and even silly.

After the time is up, select the strongest ideas, and even combine two or more into an even stronger idea.

Phase 4: DesignThumbnails

Roughs

Comprehensives

Client review

Phase 5: Implementation and EvaluationProduction on the computerCraftsmanship, precision, neatness,

professionalismAvoid spelling, grammatical and punctuation

errorsAvoid smudges and/or unwanted marksMake sure all edges align as they are supposed

toMake sure there are no errors of any kind—if

there are, fix right away!Presentation to the client

Phase 5: Implementation and EvaluationCritiques—methods of evaluating how

successfully a project has been accomplished.First, define success. What would make this

project perfect?What aspects of the project resulted

successfully, and what needs to be repeated in the future?

What aspects of the project could have been improved? What was needed in order to achieve improvements?

Finally, end the critique on a positive note. What will happen if the suggested changes take place?

Project 4-1 Illuminating Ideas About Energy (pg. 96) The classic four-stage model for the graphic design process is

Preparation -> Incubation -> Illumination -> Verification During the illumination phase, trying a variety of paths for ideation can spark concepts.

Design a poster to promote saving energy aimed at college students. Concentrate on one action a person can take, such as when to turn off your personal computer for energy savings.

Prepare by researching how to save energy. Visit http://www.energysavers.gov. Let your research incubate. Then try these avenues for developing a concept:

Words: Try making word lists, word associations, word mergers, or any method that will work for you Symbol: Employ an object or image to represent or stand for another thing, thought, idea, or feeling Literary device: Use a metaphor Merge: Combine two related or unrelated objects or images together to form a unique new construction

or relationship Juxtaposition: Place two images side by side for contrast or comparison

With your concept as the driving force, make thumbnail sketches of different possible compositions. Form a composition through experimentation.

Choose one or two sketches and turn them into roughs. Refine one rough and turn it into a final comp.PRESENTATION This can be done on paper or online. If printed, print on good quality, matte photo paper; use double-

sided printing paper (so no paper company trademarks are on the back). Print full size; do not include any borders or additional graphics, as these would interfere with the composition of the presented work. Arrange the design solution on the page either at life size or as large as possible.