Work Submission: The Design Process

Having completed a small design task with the specific goal of identifying what steps I took in designing, it seems that I draw the most from Market Research and Prototyping, in that order.

Originality is important to me in any design task, but so is a certain amount of drawing ideas from other designs. Looking at these designs and thinking of ways to retain a recognisable feel to them, whilst building new ideas into it is generally how I go about things.

For example, in designing the banner I looked at similar blog banners to find appropriate dimensions, but adapted somewhat by using a design that actively blended in with the background of the blog, to make the separation of the background and header clear, but less jarring.

A problem I encountered was that if using the actual background of the blog, via cut and paste, I'd have problems with image compression. The gradient effect on this background means a significantly higher number of colours are used, which when applied to the image means that a much larger file size is produced, and the blog automatically compresses it, giving the image a layer effect rather than a gradient. I worked around this by removing the gradient effect, and outlining the header with white borders to conceal the difference. Though this does make the change between the background and header more obvious, the outlines make it obvious that it was intentional rather than just a design gaff.

Repeated small changes like this are part of my Prototyping stage. The more prototypes I end up doing and testing, the closer to a good end result I get.

I notice that following the Market Research, I avoid diving straight into designing without laying down some planning. Again in a similar way to how I try to create originality without going too far as to produce something that's clearly begging to look different, I also try to set myself up so I can work with spur-of-the-moment creativity without just randomly cobbling whims together.

This is shown in my notes for the small task:


QUOTE FROM TASK NOTES__________________________________________


Things I think about:

• Context of the image: Where will it be positioned, how will it link with other areas of the blog to look like part of a whole design, rather than misplaced.
• Colour scheme: I dislike going for 'Dark' colour schemes, but white text on dark grey or black is easier to read and causes less eyestrain. And eyestrain is bad. Orange tends to be a colour that goes quite well with a dark colour scheme, in my opinion. but I might also want to use a white majority for the header for contrast with the rest of the blog.
• Information needed: What needs getting across quickly to the reader.
• Style: Professional, casual, colourful, modern, impressive, etc.

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My design process in larger projects can be summed up most simply in a handy diagram, like so.

I did only create the one plan to design the header, since it was only a test run.