Elio L. Arteaga, MFA GRA1111c – Graphic Design 1

The Five Phases of the Design Process Orientation Analysis Concept and ideation Design Implementation and evaluation

Phase 1: Orientation The 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 Audience The 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 Information Collect 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: Analysis Examine all you have unearthed to understand, assess, and strategize to move forward with the assignment.

The Design Brief Write 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 Brief Write 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 Brief Write 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 Ideation A 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 Ideation It 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,

Phase 3: Concept and Ideation The Art of Thought by Graham Wallas, English political scientist and psychologist, in 1926: Preparation Incubation Illumination Verification

Phase 3: Concept and Ideation In 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: Design Thumbnails Roughs Comprehensives Client review

Phase 5: Implementation and Evaluation Production on the computer Craftsmanship, precision, neatness, professionalism Avoid spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors Avoid smudges and/or unwanted marks Make sure all edges align as they are supposed to Make sure there are no errors of any kind—if there are, fix right away! Presentation to the client

Phase 5: Implementation and Evaluation Critiques—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 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.