The Importance of the Design Process
A Graphic Designer’s Perspective in a PR World
In the fast-paced digital world we live in today, many tasks we encounter daily can be accomplished with a single click. This convenience has made multitasking a norm, allowing us to be “superhuman” in our daily routines.
We have now entered an era where the designs we see and interact with through our devices are often generated using AI (Artificial Intelligence). As a graphic designer in the PR (Public Relations) world, I’ve noticed that some of our ideas are now being generated on AI platforms, which is not a bad idea. These tools enhance our team’s creativity and innovation, allowing us to showcase what we can offer to our clients more effectively and bring our ideas to life.
How Does the Design Process Work?
The design process can be applied to various types of projects or campaigns, but a similar process generally applies. The key difference lies in how each team applies it to their work and processes the feedback from their clients. By addressing problems and generating innovative solutions, we can achieve positive outcomes for our customers. As the saying goes, “The customer is always right.”
That being said, let me discuss the five main steps of how the design thinking process works:
- Empathize: First, you need to understand the needs or problems of your target market. This can be done through interviews to explore their daily challenges. By sharing ideas with your end users, you will come across practical solutions to these problems.
- Define the Problem: With all the data gathered from your interviews, you will become more aware of the underlying causes of the end-user problems. After analyzing these issues, you can formulate a problem statement that identifies the most common problem.
- Ideate: Based on the identified problem, you can create design ideas. At this stage, you are free to be as creative as possible, knowing that your ideas are not yet final.
- Prototype: Here, you interpret your combined ideas into a visual form, such as creating a mockup or sketch, to communicate more easily with your end users. “Design is thinking made visual” – Saul Bass
- Test: Apply your learnings from the end user and solve real problems by gathering more feedback. This feedback will help you create more effective solutions and innovations.
Skipping any of these basic steps will hinder your ability to deliver the best design, product, or service to your end users or clients.
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like; design is how it works” – Steve Jobs
Benefits of the Design Process
The design process, or any well-initiated process, improves team collaboration, enhances the quality and speed of work, and ensures realistic timelines. It makes the final design more pleasing and satisfying to both the team and the client. At work, we align all tasks with a process, not just for design but for all types of tasks we handle every single day.
Here are my takeaways: Any properly initiated process is effective across various types of work, whether preparing food, building a tower, or designing a simple presentation. Although processes might sometimes be compromised depending on the situation, it is crucial to follow them as much as possible. Otherwise, the final product may not be delivered correctly, and as a designer, I wouldn’t be confident in such a finished product.
“Bad work is worse than unfinished work.”
Words By: Felix Flores, Graphic Designer at Atteline
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