Briefing the Project With Your Client

Splattering colors and shapes all over the canvas is a painter’s way to create whatever comes to mind. A graphic designer is similar to a painter in a way that they are both creative expressions, yet graphic designers creations tend to be more strategically driven.

An astute graphic artist follows a series of steps before (s)he can begin the actual design work. This system, standard procedure, process, series of steps, or whatever you coin it is a way to ensure that you are delivering exactly what the client needs. A design for a client has to fit a specific set of requirements, so it's only natural that the process to figure out what client needs to produce an effective output is based on a logical flow.

In this post, we'll cover the seven steps needed to deliver a graphic, including:

1. Briefing the Project With Your Client

2. Researching Your Client's Ecosystem

3. Brainstorming on the Message

4. Sketching out Mockups

5. Building the Design

6. Presenting and Refining the Work

7. Putting the Design Into Production

Let's get going!

Briefingthe Project With Your Client:

The first critical step to a well-thought out design process is a briefing. The client is going to give you a “brief” overview of what he needs. At this point, a graphic designer is expected to gather as much information as (s)he can about the client’s expectations, their company's mission, vision, and goals, as well as their products or services. It's worth noting that designers need to go beyond the surface level of what the company does and dive into the benefit for their customers so that this critical component can be translated in the resulting designs.

Some designers require their prospects to fill out a questionnaire to gather some basic information and provide them an estimated price rate. Providing a design brief allows the designer to set the tone for what fundamental information is needed to begin the project, with an emphasis on the "need to know" over the "nice to have" information.

 

Visual concepts

As designers, we think visually. So it's a good idea to develop visual concepts that reflect the objectives and outline of the brief. Collect images relating to the aims of the project - Pinterest is a good tool for this. Also consider using mood boards.

The idea-generating stage will often move very quickly. If it all moves too fast, then take a breath, stand back, and refer again to the initial brief and research; this should steer you back on track.