My design process

Mar 31 2015

As with any creative endeavour, a designer's process is an important factor in producing great work. It's often helpful or at least insightful to get a peek at other creative practictioners' workflows, so I thought I'd share mine.

Step One: Sketching

Even if you design primarily in the digital realm, working with pencil and paper is still an invaluable excercise. I have a sketchbook that I am constantly filling with all my thoughts. It never leaves my side!

Personally, I find that developing your sketching skills is a fantastic way to flesh out ideas before moving them to a screen.

A photo of my design process, step one — Here is a sketch from a recent logo design project. I have included a pencil in the photo as though I just finished working on this moments before taking the photo, and had nonchalantly left it on the page, slightly askew.

A photo of my design process, step two — Here's another photo of my sketch, photographed at an angle to achieve an attractive 'depth of field'.

A photo of my design process, step three — This is my sketchbook photographed from above, arranged among various analog graphic design tools.

A photo of my design process, step four — This is a gratuitous photo of a succulent, an old-timey camera and a copy of Robert Bringhurst's *The Elements Of Typographic Style*.

A photo of my design process, step five — This is all the junk I had to clear off my desk to take these photos.

Step Two: Move to digital

At this point in the design process I usually say "fuck it" and just do the whole thing from scratch in Illustrator.

Scott Mahr

Scott Mahr's Lonely Internet Clubhouse

My design process

As with any creative endeavour, a designer's process is an important factor in producing great work. It's often helpful or at least insightful to get a peek at other creative practictioners' workflows, so I thought I'd share mine.

Step One: Sketching

Step Two: Move to digital