Design With Purpose: A Guide To The Process

Design can have a huge impact on how your customer perceives your company. For example, if your design is too busy it could distract the reader from reading your content. Or, if you choose colours that are too similar to other websites in your industry, there is a chance that it will blend in and not stand out. To help you navigate the complex world of graphic design, we've created this handy guide to illustrate what goes into the process.

Defining Your Destination
Before you start designing anything, it's always a good idea to set your intention with your design. The intention is the problem or goal you are trying to solve with your design. For example, you might want to create a brochure for an upcoming event in order to inform people about the event and get them excited about coming. This would be an intention of informing people about an event. In addition, you need to be aware of the right call-to-actions depending on the artwork you're doing and the format in which it will be published whether print or digital. 

Establishing Goals for Design
Goals can range from aesthetic, to functional, to strategic. Perhaps the most important goal is meeting the needs and expectations of your customers. When establishing goals for design, it's vital that you're considering the different audiences for this project; you should be asking yourself questions like "Does this design serve my audience?" and "What does my audience think about this design?".

Gaining Clarity and Awareness
The end goal is to help businesses grow through strong, enduring designs. One of the first steps to take when designing for a client is gaining clarity and awareness. Often this means uncovering their brand positioning statement, identifying their strengths and weaknesses, and defining their business model. It is also helpful to establish at an early stage whether there are any existing brand guidelines that the designer needs to be aware of. It is always helpful if you're able to supply your brand logo in multiple formats plus any specific fonts required and colour swatches. 

Capturing Inspiration
The most important step in the design process is capturing inspiration. This is where you find the aspects of your vision that really resonate with you and what you hope to portray through your product. It's about finding your "voice" and uncovering the strengths in what you like about yourself. Capturing this inspiration is also about taking inventory of who you are personally, how you think, and what drives you - not just what drives the company.

Discovering What You Already Have
I’ve found that the best way to start with a new design is by looking at what you already have and building on it. Time is money so if you have a template or preexisting design to work from or a template for example, it will cost less. However, if you find an experienced creative designer like me, we think fast and work fast so if you do need to start from scratch with an original design or concept, we got this.

Planning for The Journey Ahead
Design is about problem-solving, but it's also about the journey. The design process starts with discovery and research, is followed by ideation through sketching, designing and finally testing, implementation or off to print it goes! The goal of this process is to create a product that solves a specific need for people in your target audience. Having a realistic deadline that takes into account any admin, revisions and sign off is really important. It is also good to have everything you need for the artwork such as copy, logo, colours, images etc ready to send to the designer at the earliest opportunity. Don’t forget the artwork specifications such as page format and file type!

Developing a Plan of Action
Before developing a plan of action, it is helpful to first identify the audience and what you hope to accomplish with your design plus of course your budget! You should also develop a list of competitors and their weaknesses so you know what you need to do in order to differentiate yourself. Next, decide how you want users to interact with your design and create a plan. Finally, decide what actions will take place as a result of user interaction.

Designing The Solution to Meet the Goal
When designing a process, it's important to think through all of the possible scenarios so you can create an easy-to-follow system. You can do this by starting with the goal and then working backward to figure out the steps needed to achieve it. Along the way, you might find opportunities for improvement.

Translating Your Idea Into A Vision
When you think of a vision, you might be thinking about the idea that you want to take form. There's an element that goes into it and that's what we're going to talk about today. First, we need to set out our goals, whether they are long term or short term. Once we know what we want, we can figure out how to reach those goals. That's why the first step is so important. If you don't know where you're going, how do you expect to get there?