Our Design Process

When you think about hiring a designer, there are many things to look for and arguably the most important is the designers workflow. Effective design isn't created out of thin air, it is developed through a detailed process that ensures all important information is taken into account. A solid workflow can also help to outline expected time-frames, and keep the project on schedule.

laptop and coffee

This article is intended to show our general workflow when approaching a new project. Depending on the type of design and many other factors, it may not include all stages, or could be more in depth than shown.

1. Information Gathering

This stage is critical to the base of the entire project. Our intent is to gather all relevant information to your business in order to get a clear picture of the goal. We will provide you with our design questionnaire that may contain questions like:

The answers to these questions will give us a better idea of who you are, what you need, and the customers you are aiming to attract. The more detailed information you provide, the better. Sometimes, even the seemingly insignificant details can provide clues to the projects direction.

2. Research

In addition to the answers you provided from our questionnaire, we will do our own research into your field. We will look deeper into your competition and the strategies they are using. It is important to know what the competition is doing in order to stand apart and get out in front of them.

We also look at your target audience to find out any trends that might be developing. This gives us a better idea of what your customers interests are, and especially what they are not interested in.

3. Project Planning

With all the necessary information gathered and the research complete, we can move on to the planning stages. Here, we will go over a project outline that will note any expectations and important deadlines. We will also want to discuss design options such as layout, colors and style. Here, we refer back to the design questionnaire and go further into your criteria as well as any project requirements.

We use this step as a final gathering of information to make sure we know exactly where the project needs to go. From here, we can begin to come up with our initial design concepts.

5. Sketches / Mock-up

In this stage, we take all of the information you provided, to begin sketching and mapping out our ideas. We make it a point to explore any and all possibilities that fit the criteria. Often, many of the initial sketches wont work, or have been done in similar ways before. The point is not to come up with a winning idea right away, but to explore anything that comes to mind without discrimination.

Depending on the project, this stage can vary greatly in the time it takes to develop solid, usable concepts. From here, those concepts will go to the next stage to become the first mock-ups that will be presented to you. 

6. Design / Revision

When you are presented with the initial concepts, we prefer to discuss them with you and talk about any changes you may have. It is important, at this stage, that we receive feedback and especially any criticism you have about the designs. If you have any concerns, they need to be expressed at this time so we can address them and come up with a plan if necessary.

Once your concerns and feedback has been expressed, we can go ahead and make any revisions to the original designs. Depending on your needs, this could be the last step, but it could also lead to exploring new directions, and further revisions.

After the design has been approved, we prepare the final drafts for your use. If the project includes a website, development can take place during this step. If there is a logo, or any identity materials that will need to be printed, they will be prepared as needed.