Design process diagram

I have designed a process diagram using the information I found..

Presentation Background

I have designed a background for my presentation and have used 4 colours to colour code the questions

More ways to develop my skills

A good way to develop my skills is to set myself exercises.  I have found some exercises another graphic designer has posted online:

http://www.patrickmann.com/2012/02/3-exercises-to-improve-your-graphic-design-skills/

1. Come up with multiple company names, whether existing companies or purely made up.
   I prefer to create names from scratch as they allow me to have a clean slate in my mind and let my creative skills flow. A random word generator is particularly good for this.
2. Get out some paper and sketch out concepts!
   It’s simple enough. If you’re confident you can set a time limit for the exercise.
3. Repeat daily, weekly or whenever you prefer.
   You should be incrementally doing it faster with better concepts every time.
4. Create a Colour Scheme

Most graphic designers don’t take time once in a while to practice creating colour schemes,  yet it can make or break a design. Colour conveys emotion so it is important to get this right. Pick a theme or emotion you want to convey (eg. Bubbly, India, Winter, Festive). Then simply build a colour scheme, preferably made of 5 colours to reflect the theme/emotion.

I found a good website which had ten qualities all graphic designers should have to be successful which I found very interesting:

http://graphicdesignschools.com/resources/top-10-qualities-of-a-great-graphic-designer

1. Artistic Ability: A great graphic designer must be talented and have a variety of artistic skills and ability.
2. Client Oriented: A great graphic designer is able to work easily with clients to ensure that designs meet specifications.
3. Communication: A great graphic designer is able to effectively communicate with clients and other members of the design team to ensure they are on track with deadlines and other goals.
4. Creativity: A great graphic designer is very creative and can come up with new and exciting ideas for designs.
5. Knows Audience: A great graphic designer understands that different audiences respond to different images and can integrate this understanding into their designs.
6. Manages Priorities: A great graphic designer is able to work within boundaries of deadlines and changing priorities and can effectively manage a workload to meet deadlines and satisfy clients.
7. Open to Change: A great graphic designer hears all criticism with an open mind and is willing to change designs based on the needs or wants of a client or opinions of members of the design team.
8. Strategy: A great graphic designer understands how strategy plays a part in marketing and advertising, and is able to develop strategic ideas and work within the scope of a client's strategic plan to execute top notch designs.
9. Teamwork: A great graphic designer works well as part of a team and recognizes that all team members must work well together and communicate openly to get a project completed.
10. Technology: A great graphic designer is well-versed in a plethora of desktop publishing software and is able to quickly learn new programs and incorporate them into his or her work.

Ways to improve

Ways to improve as a graphic design:  This will help me with my action plan on ways to improve. I found this article very helpful.

http://www.wikihow.com/Improve-As-a-Graphic-Designer

Become a collector. Each time you see a design that inspires you, collect it, bring it home and file it away. You can stack them in boxes or folders, allowing you access to them. They're a great resource of inspiration when needed. Even Starbucks gives out creative weekly mini-newspapers. 

Buy books. Having an extensive book collection is essential to learning. Try to buy a new book at least every few weeks. Look for a range of inspirational, educational, fun, and technical topics.

Read design-related blogs. You will learn a lot by reading other designers' blogs. The web in an invaluable resource of information -- take advantage of it and actually use it.

Look out for tutorials These will teach you new techniques, and will expose you to new methods and useful tricks. Work through them and then apply the learned techniques to your own designs. There are a lot of great tutorial sites out there. You can also find some on personal blogs. Constantly improve your skills by looking for tutorials and completing them.

Start a design blog. Starting a blog will make you more aware of the design community and make you more analytical toward your own work. If you blog well enough, you may also attract attention in the community.

Take lots of photos. Photos solve the problem of not being able to take home designs you like. Camera phones are great for this. Just snap a photo and file it away for later. You can use Evernote for this type of thing; pictures of building designs, textures, shapes of shadows on walls, etc. Take photos of anything that interests you from a design standpoint.

Create sample projects whenever you find free time.Create a fake brand for a company. Design logos, stationery, brochures, websites, the whole nine yards. It’s good to do this once in awhile because it keeps design fun and lets your creativity run wild without limitations. It’s often easy to get caught in a rut when clients start dictating and your work no longer remains "yours".

Redo your old designs. It is important to keep your old work. It will help you see if you’re moving forward and improving your skills. Instead of throwing away or deleting old projects, try reworking them.

Visit exhibitions of visual arts and graphic design.

Travel. Experiencing new cultures and seeing their artwork opens your mind to a whole new world. It is good for inspiration.

What I have learned from my research

What I have learned about the values and qualities to be a good graphic designer.

• Be versatile and professional
• Be excellent with your time management and make sure you ALWAYS meet your deadlines, understand the value of time and time is money so the faster you work the better.
• Have effective communication with your client, always converse and speak about what your doing.
• The client is king
• Put 100% into your work even if the brief isn't your sort of thing.  If the client wants something you are not passionate about, be professional and always put everything into your work.

Qualities continued...

Here is another good article about what qualities a client may look for in a designer:

http://www.resourcenation.com/article/qualities-good-graphic-designer

The search for a graphic designer will introduce you to many interesting individuals. Graphic designers are unique animals with their own style and way of doing things. Nevertheless, there are a few absolute pre-requisites for any designer you entrust with developing your brand or your next marketing piece.

A great attitude
Your graphic designer is going to play a key role in how your business is perceived by the world. You want more than just a freelancer, you want a team member. Great graphic designers have great attitudes. They jump into your brand with gusto and really immerse themselves in your products and your business goals. You do not want to hire a graphic designer who can't take criticism or seems only mildly interested in your products.

Endless amounts of creativity
Look for graphic designers who love to create. You'll know these people because they always give you a little bit more than you asked for. These are the graphic designers who come back to you with four fully-fleshed out design concepts when you only asked for two. They love their work and it shows! Don't worry, they'll be easy to spot.

Range
Successful graphic designer have a distinct style, but can also work in a wide variety of mediums for many different audiences. Find a graphic designer who is as comfortable designing killer branded ads as they are corporate-looking annual reports. If you're introduced to a skilled graphic designer with a great attitude, you're going to want to use them for a wide variety of projects in the future.

Responsibility and Professionalism
You don't want a designer who misses deadlines and needs constant prodding to get the job done. Professionalism is a must for your next graphic designer. Look for warning signs early on (missed deadlines, etc.) and do not be afraid to request that another designer be put on your job.

Qualities and values of being a graphic designer

http://digitalartempire.com/2010/11/7-qualities-you-need-to-be-a-good-graphic-designer/

Another interesting article about the qualities needed to be a graphic designer..

To be or not to be a Good Graphics designer that is indeed a vexing question as Mr. Shakespeare once said. Well he probably wrote it actually. With any technologically overwhelmed profession there are probably only a very few available positions that carry with them the elevated status of a super hero with matching salary. So it’s indeed a case of slings and arrows to bludgeon your way into the upper echelon. Let’s have a look at the 7 qualities you need to be a good Graphics Designer NO… let’s rephrase that and let’s go for broke and be a Great Graphics Designer. I mean why settle for Good when you can be Great and a super hero and retire at 37! Notice how the number 7 keeps cropping up something to do with Nostradamus I shouldn’t wonder!

All Graphic Designers are equal but some are very much more equal than others. We thought we would just slip in a curved ball here to keep you reading because well, lets face it, Graphic Design is not  exactly the most enticing subject to be reading about is it. So you can imagine what it’s like writing about it. So now we have established that there could be a pecking order it’s imperative that we, I mean YOU, aim to be the head Rooster. And that is no easy task. I mean you’ve got all those boring and impatient Clients and all those Creative Directors and then there’s the Canteen lady to contend with as well, with her weak coffee and lame comments about the color of your tie!

Ok time for some real meat, and horror of horrors, that Designers’ nightmare the Bullet Points! 7 I think we said would do just fine. It’s difficult to put qualities in any order of importance since one Designers’ “must have” quality could be a complete “no no” for another. There has to be some consensus here don’t you think? So what we’ll do is put them in Alphabetical order and then there won’t be any argument! As it so happens probably the one quality that reigns supreme and conveniently begins with A is Artistic ability so here we go.

Artistic Ability

Being of the Artistic persuasion doesn’t mean you have to draw like Picasso! Sketching or doodling can easily be turned into a masterpiece by your Computer!

Audience

We are not talking here about a meeting at the Vatican, desirable though that would be on the CV of a prospective Great Graphics designer, but of the Target Market. A Good Graphics Designer must be aware of the Audience that is being aimed at, so that the designs can be steamrollered accordingly. Sorry that should have read integrated! Integration is good and wholesome.

Communication

Many artistically inclined designers, like any creative personage, sometimes find it excruciating to put their ideas across verbally…hence the need for graphic ability. So when a presentation is imminent to that irritating customer or client, I think client sounds better, and will of course mean a higher fee at the end of the day, you might need to employ an interpreter with at least one semester of Oxford English under the table. Communication skills should be a must if you are to reach Head Rooster status

Change

We live in a world of fast moving change. Change is a pain for some and a challenge for a Good Graphics designer; let’s forget Great for a moment and become good to start with. That won’t overtax the artistic and creative brain to the point of melt down just yet, so that’s agreed then! Change and the ability to absorb the changing whims of clients and the changing specifications of your project at a moments notice, is an essential part of your Good Designers Starter Pack.

Clients Needs

Yes I know clients are such a drag, especially when you are working on a new logo for the biggest social media site in the Universe and need all your creative energies focused on this. But…and it’s a big but, some clients actually do pay for your output occasionally and put croissants and fair trade coffee on your breakfast table, so let’s be fair and at least listen to clients needs and wants. You can brow beat them with jargon later and they probably won’t realize you are going to do what you want anyway.

Deadlines

Deadlines are an unfortunate part of all life on this sphere called Earth! They affect every living thing, even good Graphic Designers. It’s just not possible to function without them. Clients have deadlines, the Creative Director has deadlines, even the Tea Lady has deadlines. So get used to it!  If you want eventually to aspire to greatness as a Designer then Deadline should be your middle name. Tough though it is, you have to put your Fly-fishing trip on hold and work all weekend most of the time and it’s not because you are time management challenged.  It’s those pesky Clients again, who else?

Strategy

The good Graphics Designer has got to come to terms with becoming a strategist. Apart from its sounding good in your vocabulary, developing ideas and amalgamating the strategic plan of your Client into Your ideas and concepts is clearly an important quality if you want to reach the summit. Clients will bend to your expert and superior knowledge as a strategist and you will fly with the Eagles. Since we are restricted to 7 bullet proof qualities we’ll cheat and add a couple more here under guise of Strategy. Teamwork and Technology don’t always make good bedfellows but don’t leave them out in the cold. After all you have to work with your Team every day and you probably also use a Computer.

More Strengths of being a graphic designer continued

You can express your creativity.

Its a job where you get to express your creativity and yes clients may suggest designs but at the end of the day its still the designers idea

Variation of work.

You could one day be working on a mobile phone app and the next on a newsletter, there's so many things you can do and paths you can go down with graphic design so you get a large variation of work.

High demand.

According to research I have done, it appears that graphic designers are in demand, its such a big market because there is a lot of work out there.

Freelance.

You have the option to work for yourself and and there are many benefits in working this way: flexible working arrangements, more than one client etc

You can work anywhere.

As long as you have your tools with you: your computer you can work anywhere you could even work next to a beach on holiday!

You can learn on your own.

This is a big strength as you can teach yourself by watching tutorials online and on youtube

You will spend less.

Once you have the computer and software your there are no further costs - you can just send the printing bill to the client!

Strengths answers

I came across a question on yahoo answers where people had given their opinion on whether it was a strength being a graphic designer and here are some of the answers below.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081014071610AAyRNpS

Graphic design jobs of all types require exceptional attention to detail and patience. Designers often work on the same project for weeks on end, so being able to cope with a repetitive environment is important. There are also often strict deadlines to meet.

Self Employment

Graphic design has a high rate of self employment due to the ease of delivering graphic design work. Graphic design can be undertaken solely at home on a computer and as such many people simply find clients through word of mouth, advertising and via the internet. It is certainly possible to make a good living running a graphic design business right from your home or from your own office.

A self employed graphic designer does not have the advantage of the regular income that a paid employee has. There are also no retirement benefits. However there are other benefits to self employment including:


Tax breaks
Flexible hours
Possibility to earn more money
Choose your own clients
Being your own boss
The negatives of being self employed are often significantly outweighed by the positives.

PRO:
You set your own hours.

CON:
You’re expected to work 24 / 7.

PRO:
You set your own rates.

CON:
How do you know when you’re selling yourself short?

PRO:
You’re doing the job you love.

CON:
Many people don’t appreciate your design education.

PRO:
You make the rules.

CON:
No-one explains how things should be done.

PRO:
If you want a holiday, you take a holiday.

CON:
Should you decide to go on holiday you don’t get paid for it.

PRO:
You get to wear a lot of different hats.

CON:
Sometimes you just want to wear your favourite hat.

PRO:
Realising you’ve paid too much tax at the end of the year and getting a nice rebate.

CON:
Accounting.

PRO:
You talk to people across the globe.

CON:
Sadly you don’t meet all your clients face-to-face. Maybe one day.

Design process in more detail

Okay, so in the previous post I mentioned 4 main steps so I'm going to look into these more:

1.Briefing

So this part could mean a few things, one example would be meetings between myself and a client to discuss what they want , what they don't want and any specifics they may have, taking notes and having a understanding of what is needed.

2. Design

So this is where I would start working on rough idea and experimenting with different sources of media to find which one I thought fitted the brief, send ideas to the client to get feedback and see if any ideas they liked, keep experimenting and coming up with ideas.

3. Artwork

Here I would come up with my final design ideas and send them to the client.

4. Production

The client would then choose the design or designs he liked form the finals and here I would then print the designs.

Design Production Process

I found an interesting e-book online all about graphic design and there was a section about the production process, here are some print screens from the book. 

There are many things to take in account with the production process, however, I think it comes down to four main steps 

1. Briefing
2. Design
3. Artwork
4. Production

More reasearch contined

Tips to improve as a graphic designer

Graphic design is a field that is quickly changing, both creatively and technically, and while it is easy to get caught up in learning new technical skills, it is just as important to focus improving and pushing the limits of our creativity.

While in design school, it was easy to surround myself with inspiration and engage in activities that helped my understanding of effective design. Once I graduated I feared losing it, since I was no longer surrounded by a learning environment. I made it a point to continue educating myself as much as possible and become more active in the field of design. I was determined not to let my designs grow stagnant, but rather transgress and improve with time. Here are a few tips, exercises and practices that have help me continue learning, strengthen creativity and become an all around better designer.

Become a collector

Each time you see a design that inspires you, collect it, bring it home and file it away. I have hundreds of brochures, posters and other collateral that I have collected over the years that is stacked away in folders and boxes that I can quickly access – great source of inspiration when needed. Even Starbucks gives out creative weekly mini-newspapers.

Buy books

Having an extensive book collection is always essential to learning. I try buying a new book at least every 2 weeks that range from inspirational, educational and technical topics.

Read design-related blogs

I can’t stress enough how much information I have learned by reading other great designers blogs. The web in an invaluable resource of information – take advantage of it and actually use it!

Start a design blog

Having started this blog only a couple months ago, I have found it to be extremely useful and educational for myself. It has made me more aware of the design community and more analytical of my own work.

Join and be active in the design community

As a freelance designer, joining the online design community is a must. Not only does it keep you up-to-date in the design world, but is also great for feedback and critique. Being your own boss is great, but not having anyone to answer to as a freelancer also has it’s down sides. No one to criticize your work and help you improve.

Take lots of photos

Solves the problem of not being able to take home designs you like – Camera phones are great for this kind of thing. Just snap a photo and file it away for later. I use Evernote for this type of thing; pictures of building designs, textures, shapes of shadows on walls. Basically anything that interests me from a design stand point.

Create fake projects

Whenever I find myself with free time (which is getting less and less lately) I create fake projects. Create a fake brand for a company. Design a logo, stationary, brochure, website – the whole nine yards. It’s good to do this once in awhile because it keeps design fun and let’s your creativity run wild without limitations. It’s often easy to get caught in a rut when clients start dictating and your work no longer becomes “yours”.

Redo other people’s design

Don’t want to create a fake brand to design? Try redesigning other people’s projects. This help’s you evaluate what “they” did wrong and what you could do better.

Redo your old designs

I know what it feels like to look at your early days of design and think “Oh my! What was I thinking?! I need to get rid of that immediately”, but is important to keep that work. It will help you see if you’re moving forward and improving your skills. Instead of throwing away or deleting old projects, try reworking them.

Attend lectures

Every few months I make it a point to attend lectures of other designers speaking at local schools and universities. Always learn a new thing or two.

Network with other designers

Attending lectures is a great way to meet other designers. I always try to search out the designers that have more experience and talent than I do. I know – it’s hard to admit someone else is better than you, but networking with people of higher skill levels will push you to work harder and learn more.

Take classes

Many local college allow you to register for classes without enrolling full-time. It will not only teach you some new things technically, but also put you back in a classroom of your peers.

Interview other designers and studios

A year ago, a friend of mine, started a ‘national studio tour‘ where he toured and interviewed with over 100 different design studios. He said the experience was amazing and learned so much by asking questions that design school could have never answered. He also met a valuable useful contacts ;)

Travel

Every time I travel to another country, I come back feeling extremely inspired. I usually find myself designing all day for a few weeks straight. Experiencing new cultures and seeing their artwork, opens your mind to a whole new world. Just wish I could travel more!

Learn something new

Whenever I am in a creative slump I try something new or do something completely unrelated to design. Getting your mind off things and into something new, usually has a funny way of working itself back around.

Grab a sketchbook

Helps you work through ideas quickly and without limitations of design software. Has made a HUGE difference in my designs. See what other designer’s say about the importance of sketching here and here.

source: http://www.thedesigncubicle.com/2008/11/16-tips-to-improve-as-a-graphic-designer/

How to devlelop my skills

I came across an interesting article on the web on how to improve as a graphic designer:

One of the major threats to your career as a graphic designer is to let your work stagnate and your improvement slow down. It’s very easy to fall into a comfort zone where you stop exploring new design techniques and simply stick with what you know. This is why most designers experience the greatest learning curve early on, and why after they ‘find their style’ their future improvement is far more limited.

Today I want to argue that designers should never ‘find their style’. They should always strive to try new styles, to continually improve, and to push beyond their comfort zone. Imagine if you continually improved at the rate you did early in your design career – I’m betting that you’d be a better designer than you are today!

Let’s explore some of the ways to improve as a designer:

Read Design Tutorials

Design tutorials are a fantastic way to improve your skill-set. Tutorials usually show you how to make a specific outcome by explaining the entire work process in a series of detailed steps. Tutorial sites usually cover a range of different categories, such as text effects, photo manipulations, web layouts etc… Try to explore a range of tutorial sites, as well as tutorial categories in order to broaden your design skills.

Seek Inspiration From a Wider Variety of Sources

The number one killer for design inspiration is limiting your sources of inspiration. I’ve already mentioned the importance of design tutorials, but you should look beyond online inspiration. Offline influences can have a tremendously positive effect upon your designs. Inspiration lies everywhere – in nature, in the everyday, bizarre, and transitory. Look to films, art, posters, street signs and photography. The more varied your inspiration, the more varied your work. If you let all the creativity available in the world benefit you, your work will be richer and more profound.

Choose to Design From Something Specific

Often it can be difficult to improve because you consistently design around the same themes. Broadening your inspirational sources is a good start, but I find that designing around a specific idea can also be beneficial. Rather than designing a photo manipulation around the theme of ‘nature’ for example, why not design around a specific quote, song lyric or even memory. The more personal the specific influence the better, although it can also be interesting to design around an abstract or obscure entity.

Consider Paid Resources

I discovered this method pretty late in my design career. For years I avoided paying for anything apart from my software, preferring to use free resources for all my work. I have to be honest, after trying out some premium fonts, photos and vectors the money is honestly worth it. If you’re really serious about improving your design work I recommend finding the highest quality resources to use in your compositions. Don’t settle for a lower quality image simply because it’s free, this will only hold you back.

Another reason for using premium resources is that there are a limited number of quality free resources. This means that these quality freebies have been used thousands of times by designers, and have lost much of their impact. How many times have you seen ‘generic jumping figure covered in Photoshop light effects’. Premium resource websites offer a wider, more unique, higher quality selection, and if you’re using these as part of your commercial work I’m sure you’ll see a financial return due to your improved designs.

Utilize Your Other Relevant Talents

As you may have guessed by now, it’s crucial to add diversity to your design work, as this is a key ingredient in improving. A great way to do this is to bring in some of your other talents. If you draw, then scan in hand drawn elements and integrate this into your design work. If you do calligraphy then implement what you’ve learnt into your digital typography. If you have no relevant creative skills (which is unlikely) then learn some! Take a class, or if you can’t afford that teach yourself. The more areas which you feel confident in creatively, the better your digital work will be.

Why not try the following ideas, you should feel more inspired afterwards, which in turn should improve your regular design work:

Take a step away from the computer and create an offline work of art. Aim to design a mixed media piece using whatever talents you possess. If you can’t draw, why not create a creative collage?

Print off some of your digital work and mess around with it using more traditional art tools. It feels liberating to mess it up a little, so get out the scissors and go nuts!

Try to recreate one of your favorite digital designs in an offline medium. You’ll be surprised at how much you’ll learn about the basic ideas behind your original composition in doing so, and you should formulate some great ideas on how to improve your digital work.

source:http://www.noupe.com/design/how-to-improve-as-a-graphic-designer.html