Do You Need To Know How To Draw To Be A Graphic Designer

Every freelancer has their own daily routine and rituals that assist them feel productive and creative, whether it'due south a morning cup of tea or a half-hr of sketching outside.

While little rituals like these vary from person to person, you'll find that the work process followed by freelance designers is largely consequent across the lath. In one case that cup of tea's been tuckered, every professional person has a step-by footstep process for completing their pattern work to a high standard.

Here nosotros take a wait at the process freelancers use to bring a blueprint brief into reality for their clients. From building mood boards and mock-ups to assessing impress proofs and consumer testing, these are the building blocks of any pro's piece of work process. Read on to discover how to make your own workflow smoother and more than efficient every time.

Stage One: The Brief

When a client contacts you lot with a job in heed information technology is your opportunity to extract equally much information from them as you tin. No designer is a heed-reader, so it'due south of import at this early phase of the graphic design process to appraise exactly what the client is hoping for, and for you to communicate what they can wait from y'all inside the timeframe.

Step 1: Customer Coming together and Cursory Analysis

A client might get in impact with you over email or telephone proposing a blueprint project. If the client is new, they may expect an initial contiguous coming together before proceeding to the quote stage. Like-minded to meet for a quick coffee will aid you to appraise whether the client is serious well-nigh commissioning a project. Have forth portfolio items that are relevant to the project the client has in mind. This helps the client run into if your mode and approach volition conform them, as well equally give some food for idea in terms of the direction of the project.

Following this first coming together you can ship the client a contract and quote and request a written brief. It'southward very important to get these documents in writing, preferably as stand-alone Word or PDF documents rather than but in email format. This will assistance set a professional person tone from the very outset of the projection, and allows both parties to refer to what was quoted or briefed if whatever dispute later arises. For designers a written contract is particularly important to have to hand, as it's not unheard of for clients to change their minds about what they desire later on down the line. This in itself is not a problem, but you do need to ensure that the client is willing to pay for extra hours if the brief is altered.

Y'all can provide the client with a blueprint brief form for them to fill up in, including sections on the details of the project, the deadline and their own ideas for the style or management they would like for the blueprint (if they have whatsoever). If they are able to provide information about their concern' brand ethos and competitors inside their sector this is also very helpful, and access to brand guidelines, if available, is essential for brand-centric projects. Even simple brand elements, like a color palette or fonts, can exist a fantastic starting point for developing your ideas.

Stride 2: Market Research

Once y'all have a clear brief in place you might be tempted to swoop straight into designing. Just hold upwards! Marketplace research is an often neglected stage of the freelancer's piece of work process, just one that's actually worth your fourth dimension.

Do some online enquiry into your customer's industry and their competitors. Can you lot spot mutual traits between brands in a detail sector? Practice they employ certain colors more oft than others? Exercise they normally opt for san-serifs over serif fonts? You'll find that some industries volition share design traits in common — tech companies love clean sans serif typography, for instance, while edifice and machinery companies love the punchy color pairing of blackness and yellow. You don't need to mimic these designs, but you should exist aware of the mood employed by your client'southward competitors.

Doing a trivial market research will also requite you valuable context for your design. By spending but an hour or and so researching, yous can begin to call back near how your design volition stay relevant to the sector while occupying a unique niche in the market place. Y'all can also avoid any unfortunate indistinguishable logo scenarios (these happen more than often than you think), which is a frustrating end to any logo design project.

Step 3: Mood Boarding

Designers have their own preferred ways of sourcing and compiling inspiration. If you similar to have your inspiration in forepart of you while y'all work, a mood board is the perfect inspiration reference to have on mitt. Some designers prefer to create a physical lath using clippings, impress-outs, sketches, and color samples. Alternatively, creating a simple grid-based board in Photoshop or InDesign is a convenient way to drop in images sourced from online. Mix with fonts and color swatches to create a handy reference that is ready for applying to digital work.

At that place are also several online tools for creating mood boards that are corking for sharing with clients or collaborators. Pinterest is an oldie but a goodie, allowing you lot to create hugger-mugger boards that y'all can share with clients. The images generated on the Pinterest home page are too more tendency-driven than Google Images, allowing you to check out what consumers are pinning and ownership within your client's sector. If y'all're working in a team, a collaborative whiteboarding tool similar Mural allows you to share inspiration and ideas collaboratively for a $12 per month fee.

Step iv: Sketching

Peradventure your mood boarding practice has given you a spark of inspiration for your project, or maybe you're nevertheless unsure of the management to go in. Either way, this is when it's time to pace abroad from the figurer, pick upward a pencil and paper, and start sketching. There's something intrinsically artistic about sketching past hand; when you're away from the screen you accept no other distractions and your brain can actually take the freedom to wander and explore the ideas that popular into your head.

Every designer has their ain preferred method for sketching, and with practice you'll soon find your groove. I personally like working on a big sketchpad (at least A3 in size), with a fine-tipped ink pen. I tend to sketch exterior or at least away from my office to give me a suspension from whatever distractions. Give yourself a defined slot of time to simply sketch and resist temptations to go online or check emails. Don't worry well-nigh refining your sketches or making them wait good; at this stage your focus should simply be on generating lots of rough ideas. If you have thoughts about mood, branding, or colors, write them down as annotations on the page. Aim to fill up a few pages of your pad with lots of diverse ideas. Don't dwell on a unmarried concept for as well long — once you've explored one thought in a couple of sketches, force yourself to move onto something different.

Step 5: Concept Refinement

When your fourth dimension is up, step away from your sketchpad and take a suspension. You'll come back to your sketches feeling refreshed and ready to assess them impartially. If you're working collaboratively, catch i of your teammates to review your sketches alongside you. It's worth asking for exterior opinion: You might be attached to a item idea, but they might observe something special in a dissimilar sketch.

Take a pen and circle the three ideas that yous feel have the nearly potential for development. Even if y'all're not completely sure about one or even two of these ideas, you lot should always refine at least three concepts. This gives the customer plenty to think about and helps create a better, more thoughtful pattern by the finish of the process.

It'southward time to refine your designs, but don't move back to the reckoner just nevertheless. Take a fresh sheet of newspaper for each of your 3 sketches, and redraw out the designs by hand. You lot might want to bring in colored pens or paints, and spend a little longer cultivating the details of the designs.

In one case yous have a trio of refined sketches, yous tin can digitize them. At this stage, yous don't want to spend undue time refining the three designs digitally. After all, two of your designs will end upward on the drawing room floor after presenting to the client. Focus on digitizing the basic of your 3 designs, whether that's through simplified vector versions of logo designs in Illustrator, or drafting quick affiche layouts in InDesign.

Stage Two: Presentation

When y'all've got your trio of refined designs, it's time to impact base with the client. Designers are often hesitant to reveal their ideas to clients before they have been perfected, but checking in with the client at this stage will actually save you a lot of heartache and time downwardly the line.

Step one: Three-Concept Presentation to the Customer

There's an fine art to presenting your ideas to clients and, believe me, it'due south non always simple to do. If you lot detect presentations a petty nerve-wracking, your best approach is to simply exist prepared. Present your three pattern concepts in a nicely composed document —Adobe InDesign is my go-to software for producing high-quality presentation documents. Set out the document on landscape A4 or Letter-sized pages, making information technology easy for a client to impress in-house, and keep the pages simple and gratuitous of clutter, allowing your designs to take centre-stage. You lot can send over the presentation on email, or bring a few printouts with you lot to a meeting.

Step 2: Client Review and Farther Refinement

Many designers struggle to hear criticism about their designs, even if information technology is effective. Keep in heed that the customer knows their business inside and out, and while they may not know what is best in terms of design for their make, they will have a fine-tuned sense of what has worked for them in the by.

You may have a strong attachment to one of your designs, and there are techniques yous tin employ to subtly push your client in the right direction, such as placing your favored blueprint at the stop of your presentation (to ensure a lasting impression) and being open to suggestions about adjustments.

Presenting your ideas to the client might seem scary, but remind yourself that both parties desire a good outcome to the project. It'southward very unlikely the client won't warm to whatsoever of your ideas, and if yous're open to suggestions, there's always opportunity for a lukewarm idea to develop into something fantastic. With the client'due south backing you tin can make headway on refining the approved design. This might involve a few days working on your software of choice, reviewing drafts at diverse stages, and seeking outside opinion from collaborators and even friends or family.

Step three: Last Review and Edits

It'south likely you've spent the terminal few days completely captivated in refining your pattern. As every designer knows in that location's e'er room for comeback and it's a wise thought to periodically print out your drafts, take a break from them and review them with a fresh heart. It's astonishing what you tin spot when you've had a half hr intermission away from your work. Suddenly it seems completely obvious that a piece of text needs some kerning improvement, or your choice of colors is a little too brash.

When you lot've produced a near-perfect draft of your blueprint, it'due south once once more fourth dimension to touch base of operations with the client. They may have lots to suggest, or very little, and it'southward upwards to you lot to make up one's mind if the amount of edits required is covered comfortably by your original quote. If non, yous should consider asking for the client to pay for extra hours. This is also the right time to outsource help for issues that are not design-focussed, such every bit copywriting and copyediting.

Phase 3: Technical Production

I of the virtually satisfying stages of a freelancer's work process is seeing their piece of work go from paper or screen to reality. As this phase oftentimes requires skills and equipment that merely others can provide it's essential you put the fourth dimension into edifice your petty black volume of resources. Whether it'due south a reliable impress store or a smashing-value web programmer, much of a freelancer's fourth dimension is spent locating and contacting these key people.

Stride 1: Sourcing Production

If you're new to freelancing, edifice your little black volume of helpful contacts is an essential pace that will put you in good stead for tackling any client project with confidence. No man is an island, and often information technology volition exist more than economical, practical, and fourth dimension-efficient for you to outsource production rather than learning sure skills yourself from scratch.

Printing is one such production method which is simply impossible for near in-business firm designers to exercise themselves. You tin search online for local print shops (which are great for smaller jobs, like brochures and posters) and more than sophisticated print labs (which are better suited to high-end piece of work, similar magazines, exhibition materials or photography press). Not all printers are created equal, and you lot may discover that some are cheaper and/or more than reliable than others, and so shop effectually to get the best deal. If you end upward doing print work regularly for clients, some impress shops will let you to open accounts with them, which offering prioritization when time is short and sometimes amend deals on impress jobs.

If you dabble in web design, information technology'south e'er good to have a reliable web programmer on hand likewise. Sure, you may know how to ready a WordPress template, just yous'll need coding expertise when launching websites or apps.

Stride 2: Creating a Mock-up and/or Testing

Once y'all've sourced a printer or web developer, you're gear up to movement onto the pre-launch stage of your pattern procedure.

For print pattern, this might involve creating a mock-up to talk over with your called printer. If you're calculation multiple post-print furnishings to your design, such as foiling, embossing or die-cutting, explaining exactly what y'all want to the printer in person is also a wise move. Yous tin can create a rough mock-up quickly from a home or office printer – it doesn't need to be to size. Annotate it with instructions if required, and pay a visit to the printers to talk information technology over. Your printer will detect this to exist incredibly helpful, so don't be shy about specifying exactly what you want washed

After specifying what you want from the printer, yous should request a pre-print proof, which should exist provided for you lot gratis of charge. You can use this to appraise whether colors are printed to your satisfaction, if multi-page documents have been arranged correctly and also whether postal service-print processes like trimming have been done well.

If you're working on a website or app design, it's essential to accept a testing phase before launching. Your programmer can help you lot do this in lodge to gear up whatsoever irregularities that popular up. Clients will await your website design to work equally well across all browsers and all devices, but it tin be catchy to get hold of numerous tablets, phones, and desktops to examination across. This is where cross-browser testing tools come in handy. CrossBrowser Testing tests your design across over 1500 browsers and devices, ensuring your design is optimized for every visitor.

Step 3: Fourth dimension to Launch!

Whether you've received a box full of printed posters or pressed the 'Publish' button for your website blueprint, the feeling of finally sharing your blueprint with the client or the world is simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating. All your difficult work has condensed into this pattern, and y'all should take a moment to appreciate it. Give yourself a well-deserved pat on the back!

Once the design is completed, and all relevant files have been handed over to the customer, information technology's time to submit your invoice. If all has gone well you shouldn't have whatsoever issues, and you can get yourself ready to move onto the next exciting design brief.

Stride 4: Heading Back to the Cartoon Board

Unfortunately, not all design projects have a completely happy ending. Yous may demand to be involved in the project even afterwards completion, depending on your initial agreement with the client.

This may exist something as minor as fixing small-scale faults in an app blueprint that only became apparent after launching, or information technology could be every bit farthermost every bit a complete reassessment of a pattern from scratch. Sometimes consumers simply don't warm to a rebrand, or the client decides that a book cover needs revising to work in a different market.

The realisation that your hard work might not accept led to the perfect design tin be disappointing for both the designer and the client, but it'due south something that every freelance designers needs to get accustomed to. What is truly important is the way in which you arroyo revisions. Heading back to the drawing board with an open mind and renewed enthusiasm can be hard at first, simply information technology really will show your client that you're an adaptable professional, and will as well pb to greater long-term evolution for you every bit a designer.

The freelance designer's work procedure comes full-circle if revisions are called for, but this certainly shouldn't exist seen as a failure. Past sticking to a failsafe work process, from analyzing a brief to presenting ideas to overseeing the production of your design, y'all can minimize the possibility of revisions on your designs, and create something you're truly proud of.

All Images by PureSolution

Source: https://www.shutterstock.com/blog/guide-graphic-design-process

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