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Graphic design process

The graphic design process is a systematic approach designers use to create effective visual communication solutions. The process begins with understanding the client's requirements and objectives through a design brief. This involves gathering information about the project scope, target audience, goals, brand guidelines, and constraints.

A well-defined design brief serves as a foundation for the design process, helping designers understand the client's needs and expectations, make informed design decisions, and deliver effective design solutions that meet or exceed the client's goals. Graphic design is not just about making paste-ups and mechanicals or the equivalent on a computer using a range of software; it is about conceptualising, conceiving, imagining, constructing, producing, managing, and realising an aesthetically determined functional piece of visual communication.

You need to get deep inside the minds of clients and their audiences. This requires engaging with the design process's social dynamic: working with people, maintaining dialogue, and managing expectations and time frames. Designers create visuals that persuade and influence. Whether it’s convincing customers to buy a product, encouraging social change, or advocating for a cause, persuasive design communicates a clear message.

Creating graphics often requires creativity and problem-solving skills to develop new ideas and solutions for communicating a message or telling a story visually. It involves visual elements such as images, typography, colours, and layout to convey a specific message or idea. By using graphics effectively in different types of communication, you can enhance the effectiveness of your message and engage your audience more effectively.

There are many types of communication, and this includes.

Visual Identity

This includes logos, colour palettes, typography, photography, and icons. Ultimately, these are the building blocks of graphic design and outcomes you would present to the client or customer. Read more about visual identity here.

Motion Graphics

This includes GIFs, animation, memes, social media, and videos. Mobile phone users have interacted with motion graphics regularly, and the industry is growing daily. Read more about motion graphics here.

Marketing

This includes banners, slide decks, online brochures, and infographics. This can all increase a company’s profile, brand awareness, and business growth. Read more about marketing here.

UI/UX Design

This includes interfaces, apps, imagery, interactivity, and websites. Read more about the difference between UI and UX design here.

Social media

This includes brand identity, apps, websites, advertising, and products. Collectively, these increase the customer exposure to a company’s products. Read more about the pros and cons of social media marketing here.

Publications

This includes newsletters, magazines, catalogues, books, and flyers. They improve readability and enhance the visual appeal to the user or client.

Communication strategies

As a designer, it is not enough for you to solve problems or create solutions. Without support from your team or peers, your ideas will go nowhere. There will always be others involved in the decision-making process, and it is crucial to have support from your colleagues if you want to see your ideas taken forward. Communicating design concepts and principles, ideas, and solutions in an empathetic and practical manner will help you get your message across, but being able to listen to others is of equal importance.

Good public speaking and communication skills also allow you to present new ideas and designs to key stakeholders and get them on your side early on in the game. By delivering your process to them in advance and showing that there’s thought behind every decision, you are giving them insight into how their project will progress while demonstrating the amount of work involved.

Remember, every design element—from font choice to colour palette plays a role in achieving communication objectives. Whether you’re designing for print, web, or social media, keeping these goals in mind ensures that your work effectively reaches its intended audience.

What is a design brief?

A design brief is a document that outlines the core details and expectations of a design project. A good design brief sets the tone for a successful design project by outlining the goals, quality, and deliverables. Any company that utilises design resources can benefit from having designers create a brief before their project, whether those designers are in-house or freelance.

There are many advantages to having a design brief when starting a new project. It gives you time to truly understand the nuances of a company and its audience. A design brief also reassures the client that their opinion is valued and that all parties have the same end goal.

In this section you will review what a design brief is, how to create a successful one, and what you should include in your design brief.

By using a design brief, you can:

• Create a more trusting designer-client relationship.
• Gain insight into the brand and target audience.
• Invite the client to be more involved in the project.
• Align on a reasonable timeline and budget before the project begins.
• Set a standard for the quality and types of deliverables needed.

There are four (4) steps in the process of creating and submitting a design brief. Click on the headings below to find out more.

By confirming the communication objectives for the graphics work, designers can ensure that their designs effectively communicate the desired message to the target audience. This also helps ensure the project is completed on time and within budget, as everyone clearly understands the objectives and what needs to be achieved.

Developing and refining ideas for graphics requires a combination of creativity, critical thinking, and practical skills. By following these steps, you can develop and refine ideas for graphics that effectively communicate the desired message and achieve the desired impact.

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It gives ideas on how to generate design ideas. (4:32)

The design brief and specifications

Design specifications are detailed requirements for a design, which may include functional, aesthetic, economic, or performance-related factors. They are often split into ‘must’ and ‘could’ categories, clarifying what is essential and what is desirable but not crucial. These provide a checkpoint for designers during the design process and help evaluate the final design during the testing phase.

These are as follows

• The functional specification describes what the design must do or the task it must perform.
• The aesthetic specification outlines the sensory qualities of the design, such as appearance, texture, or colour.
• The economic specification details the expected costs for material, manufacturing, and marketing of the design.
• Performance-related specifications might include strength, durability, space requirements, or energy efficiency.
• Other specifications could relate to safety standards, ergonomics, environmental impact, or social and ethical implications.

Adhering to quality standards is important when completing a design specification. It is essential to ensure clarity, precision, and alignment with project goals. Begin by understanding the project context, including the product, its purpose, and the target audience. Consider any industry-specific regulations or standards that apply. Avoid vague statements. Instead, use precise language to describe quality requirements.

Regularly review and update quality standards as the project evolves and seek feedback from relevant parties to ensure accuracy and relevance.

Key role specifications play in the evaluation

Designers refer to the specifications regularly throughout the design process to ensure they are meeting the brief. During the testing and evaluation phase, the design is checked against the specifications to verify that it has met all the requirements. Where the design falls short, it will need to be adjusted and retested, while successful adherence to the specifications indicates that objectives have been met.

By carefully evaluating design brief specifications, designers can ensure they understand the project requirements and create a design that meets the client's needs and expectations. You need to ensure that you.

1. Read the brief carefully: Start by reading the design brief thoroughly, taking note of any specific requirements, deadlines, and budget constraints.
2. Clarify any questions: If there are any questions or uncertainties about the brief, don't hesitate to clarify them with the client or project manager.
3. Consider the target audience: Think about the target audience for the design, including their age range, interests, and visual preferences. This will help you create a design that resonates with the intended audience.
4. Analyse the competition: Research the competition to see what designs they are using and how you can create something unique that sets the client apart.
5. Evaluate the scope of work: Consider the work required for the project and whether you have the resources and skills necessary to complete the project effectively.
6. Review the budget: Ensure that the budget specified in the design brief is sufficient to achieve the desired outcomes, and if necessary, provide recommendations for adjustments.
7. Check for technical constraints: Ensure the design specifications can be achieved using the available software, hardware, and other resources.
8. Provide recommendations: If there are any areas where the design brief could be improved or refined, provide recommendations to the client or project manager.

By taking these steps, you can better understand the graphic design needs for a particular project or organisation and ensure that the graphics effectively communicate the desired message to the target audience. Using these various sources to develop ideas about different graphics options ensures that you are well-informed and can create effective and engaging designs.

By including these key elements in a graphics brief, you can provide clear direction and expectations for the project, which can help ensure that the final deliverables meet the client's needs and expectations. Analysing graphics requirements in briefs and other information sources involves reviewing the provided information to determine the design elements and parameters needed to fulfil the requirements.

What are information sources?

Information sources refer to any materials or channels from which information can be obtained. In the context of graphic design, information sources can include a wide range of materials and platforms that provide data, knowledge, inspiration, or guidance relevant to the design process. By leveraging diverse information sources, graphic designers can enhance their creativity, problem-solving abilities, and effectiveness in communicating messages visually.

Remember to critically evaluate information sources based on their reliability, relevance, and authority. Different contexts may require different types of sources. When assessing the credibility of a source, you need to consider certain factors to determine its reliability and trustworthiness. This includes currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, and consistency. Additionally, cross-referencing information from multiple sources can help ensure its reliability.

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It is about evaluating sources using CRAAP (2:55)

Here are some common types of information sources for graphic designers.

Books, journals and Magazines

Design theory books, graphic design textbooks, and reference materials provide in-depth knowledge of design principles, techniques, and history. Design magazines and journals feature articles, case studies, interviews, and trends relevant to graphic design and visual communication.

Website and Blogs

Online platforms offer a wealth of resources, including design blogs, tutorial websites, portfolio platforms, and forums where designers share insights, tips, and inspiration.

Online Courses and Tutorials

Platforms such as Udemy, Coursera, Skillshare, and LinkedIn Learning offer courses, tutorials, and workshops on various aspects of graphic design, software tools, and industry practices.

Design Communities

Online communities, forums, and social media platforms allow designers to connect, collaborate, share work, seek feedback, and exchange ideas and resources.

Design Software and Tools

Design software platforms like Adobe Creative Cloud provide access to built-in resources, templates, libraries, and plugins that support the design process.

Graphic Design Exhibitions and Events

Design exhibitions, conferences, workshops, and trade shows offer opportunities to explore new trends, technologies, and design practices, as well as to network with peers and industry professionals.

Client Briefs and Requirements

Client information, such as project briefs, requirements, goals, target audience demographics, brand guidelines, and existing materials, serves as valuable input for design projects.

Market Research and Data Analysis

Market research reports, industry publications, surveys, and data analysis provide insights into consumer preferences, market trends, competitive landscape, and user behaviour, informing design decisions.

Historical and Cultural References

Drawing inspiration from art history, cultural heritage, architecture, fashion, film, literature, and other disciplines enriches design concepts, narratives, symbolism, and aesthetics.

Feedback and Critique

Soliciting input and critique from peers, mentors, clients, and target audience members helps designers evaluate and refine their work, identify strengths and weaknesses, and iterate on design solutions.

Where to find information sources

In graphic design, sources for inspiration, assets, and references can be found in various places. By exploring these sources and staying curious and open-minded, you can continually fuel your creativity and find inspiration for your graphic design projects. Here is a breakdown of where you can get sources for different aspects of graphic design. Click on the headings to find out more.

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It is about free design resources (4:42)

There are several considerations that you need to be aware of as a designer working in the industry. By evaluating legal, ethical, and contractual information, graphic designers can ensure that their work complies with relevant laws and regulations and meets the profession's ethical standards. This can help to protect both the designer and the client and ensure a successful outcome for the project. Now we will look at each one in turn and assess the implications for a designer working in the industry.

Legal considerations

Legal considerations ensure that the graphic designer or company are safeguarded against anyone taking their creative work and using it without their permission. Normally the creator of any design owns the work and in the absence of any terms to the contrary, retains ownership unless it is licensed or assigned to the client in an agreement.

Therefore, a signed graphic design agreement with your client is crucial from the beginning of a design project. If you don’t have this in place, ownership, and licensing rights to use the design may be ambiguous.

However, not all creative work can be copyrighted. Copyright does not protect information, techniques, ideas, concepts, or styles. For example, if a client hires you to discuss some ideas about possible imagery and designs to be used on a website, these ideas will not be protected by copyright. If you create the images, for example, in a client proposal, these images will have copyright rights and should be protected so that the client cannot provide them to another graphic artist or designer.

There are strategies that a designer can use to protect their work. These are:

• Attach copyright notices – although copyright protection applies automatically, placing a copyright notice (e.g. © Copyright 2019 Jane Smith Designs) on your work is good practice. This will alert people that you will enforce your creator’s rights.
• Use digital watermarks – sometimes, copyright notices can be removed from the images' edge. A more robust protection would be to watermark the image, again with a copyright notice digitally.
• Check posting sites – If you post your images or designs on third-party websites, including social media sites, check their Terms & Conditions. Some websites say that you are giving your rights over to the website when you post images on their site.
• Keep proof of work – If you dispute ownership of an image or work with somebody, you may need to prove it’s yours. Ensure you keep evidence of work with times, dates, and locations.
• Go after copyright infringers – If you spot a copyright infringement –somebody has reproduced your work without your permission–respond quickly and forcefully to assert your rights. Serve them with a Copyright Infringement Notice and follow up until satisfied.

It is important to note that copyright also protects the use of images and other design elements that you must be aware of as a designer. Get into good habits as a student, and you will be less likely to run into issues once you are in the workplace. Ensure that any images, fonts, or other design elements used in your project are not copyrighted or protected by intellectual property laws. You need permission to use them or create original design elements if they are. If you are unsure, always look for copyright-free images or fonts.

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It is about design and copyright, ensuring your work is legal. (3:55)

Ethical considerations

Ethical considerations in graphic design involve producing work that is not misleading but instead is valuable and clear for clients or customers. Ideally, as a designer, you would want to take responsibility for your ethical efforts, but that responsibility often gets passed off to others. Several areas constitute ethical design. These are.

• Usability
• Accessibility
• Privacy
• Transparency
• Sustainability

Usability

Usability should be a basic requirement. An unusable product is considered a design failure. More specifically the design should help the user accomplish what they want, meet their needs, and be easy and easy to use.

Accessibility

Accessibility should be incorporated in the development process of any product or service being built, not as an afterthought at the end. There is assistive technology for those with vision impairment to use the internet. Accessible design benefits everyone!

Privacy

The best ethical design practice would be to develop designs that only collect personal information that is in the best interest of the users. With increasing awareness and concern about privacy because of targeted advertising and data-driven businesses, there has been backlash, and more customers are seeking out brands that respect the right to privacy.

Transparency

The best practice for ethical design is to provide transparency so that users can make informed choices. As designers, you should know that even the fonts and colours you use can sway your audience.

Sustainability

Rather than creating products and services with a linear lifecycle with a beginning, a middle and an end, the purpose is to design products continuously cycled in various forms, following a reuse and recycle loop, resulting in less waste. Out of responsibility to the environment, humankind, and yourself, keep in mind these ethical design principles when moving forward with your future projects.

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It is a TEDTalk on sustainable graphic design. (6:42)

Contractual considerations

A graphic design contract is a legal document that outlines the terms and conditions of your services as a designer. It specifies the details of the project, such as the deliverables, the timeline, the payment, the ownership of the designs, and the responsibilities of both parties. A graphic design contract can also include clauses that cover issues such as revisions, feedback, confidentiality, termination, and liability.

You can draft your own contract by researching the laws and regulations that apply to your location and industry, using a template or a sample contract as a guide, and customising it to fit your needs and situation.

Use clear and straightforward language, avoid jargon or ambiguity, and define any terms that may be unclear. Review and proofread your contract carefully to ensure accuracy and completeness. Send your contract to your client for approval and negotiate any necessary changes or revisions. Finally, sign and date your contract before keeping a copy for your records.

Additionally, document everything related to the project, such as emails, invoices, receipts, feedback, and revisions. It's also important to keep track of your time and expenses and invoice your client accordingly. Furthermore, deliver your work on time and according to the specifications.

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It is about setting up contracts and invoices as a freelancer. (12:41)