Brainstorming and concept development in Graphic Designing

 

Research, Copywriting and process of concept development (Brainstorming) in Graphic Designing

As we mentioned in earlier topic “Process of Designing” that after locating the problem, the second most important phase call “Research”

 

Research has very important role in Graphic designing with the help of research we provide base to enhance & improve our design.

If you are planning to produce a Graphic Design item like Poster, Magazine Ad or Ad Campaign, it is very important that you do research on target audience. You have to understand your audience you’re producing message for. You must know their financial class, educational class, social class, etc. to create the right message with the right visual as well as it is also important to have competitor research.

Idea creation / concept development

Idea is the base of our design. Before starting our design, we create idea of our design roughly. Initially the idea is not a complete design sketch as we start working on our idea gradually it become our design concept which is convert later in our design.

Idea is like a seed, when you are planning to plant a tree, you have to sow the seed & provide the water & fertilizer to become a tree. With the help of our thought process, concept development. We convert our idea in concept & later on in design.

Brainstorming / Mind Mapping

Another important process which helps a graphic designer call “Brainstorming” it could be a difficult process for designer for generating ideas but I believe that brainstorming is important because it improves creative thinking and you can actually get better at generating ideas. it is a creative process that helps generating ideas to solve clearly defined design problems. There is other many different ways to do a brainstorming, brainstorming is a group creativity technique for gathering ideas that are spontaneously contributed to reach a conclusion for a specific problem, it can be done in group or individually. When you stuck with your design & don’t understand how to start, you don’t have any idea about your design, you don’t have any concept. This is where you need brainstorming. Communicating with other people, share your thoughts & get feedback from others & surely you will find a solution.

Graphic Designer-Necessary Skills

 

Necessary Skills for a Graphic Designer

Graphic Designing itself is a very great skill but some other skills are linked with graphic designing that are very important & helpful for a good graphic designer.

Technical skills: 

These skills help you to become a good graphic designer to improve your work & take your skill to advance level in your art work.

Typography:

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

In graphic designing Alphabet Letters has a very important role. 

When we are trying to communicate a visual message we need to arrange the words in text format to deliver our message clearly to the audience. Arrangement of words & phrases are called typography. A person become a good graphic designer, if he learnt to handle text in designing.

Photography:

Photo by Patrick Donnelly on Unsplash

When we are designing a poster or magazine Ad we use images in our design to communicate our message capturing of these images call photography. It’s not necessary that you must be a professional photographer but at least a basic knowledge about photography is helpful to become a good graphic designer.

Illustration:

Photo by pure julia on Unsplash

Creating/making a sketch or drawing something call illustration. When a graphic designer starting a job / project, after brainstorm process, he implements his ideas by creating thumbnail sketches of his design. So illustration is also very important skill in graphic designing.

 

Software:

Photo by iyus sugiharto on Unsplash

Graphic designing is incomplete without software. Ai, Ps, Id, etc. you have to be skillful in these software to understand the use of its features & tools to become a good graphic designer.

 

Professional skills:

These skills make your graphic designer personality professional & help you to improve your work & keep you out of the crowd.

Communication skill: 

Graphic design also known as visual communication design. A graphic designer must have good communication skill. When you try to convey a message visually, if your communication skill is good, you will able to create & convey your visual message also good. Communication skill is also important to understand & educate your client when you awarded a project.

Critical Thinking: 

Graphic designing is a problem solving activity. If you understand your problem & you know that the poster/magazine Ad you are designing, what message you are trying to communicate/convey to the audience, you will make it the best you can.

Analytical Skill: 

For a graphic designer, it is very important to analyze his work time to time. Also use the negative feedback to improve his work & understand the week point for improvement.

 Quality Assurance: 

When you’ve complete your designing work, you’ve to make sure & examine the design if it is as per the client requirement & expectation before releasing to the client.  

Graphic Designing - Introduction

 

What is Design?

Photo by Fakurian Design on Unsplash

To understand the Graphic design, we need to know about Design

      “Design is a problem solving activity” We solve our problem with the help of design process.

       “Design is a plan map or drawing” which is use to define shape & purpose

       “Design is to present Idea in visual form”

Design is an arrangement of elements in such a way that it serves a function/purpose and holds a specific form / shape.

 

Art is the process that artist express his viewpoint, ask political or social question or could be used for environment beauty/decoration purpose.

Mr. Gavin Ambrose has defined the Graphic Design in his book “The fundamentals of graphic design” 

“Graphic design is a creative visual art

discipline that encompasses many areas. It may

include art direction, typography, page layout,

information technology and other creative aspects.

This variety means that there is a fragmented

landscape for design practice within which

designers may specialise and focus.”

 What is Process of Designing?

As we discussed about the design that it is solution of the problem but it is also a process which increase value of any product or service.

Prof. Rolf Faste from Stanford university USA has presented a theory in earlier days’ called “Design Thinking Process” He define 6 steps which helps a graphic design in designing process of anything.

1. Empathize: Research on target audience. Collect information about your target audience & understand the need of your user. you should gain an empathetic understanding of the problem you are trying to solve through user research.
2. Define: Define the core problem based on the information gathered during the Empathize stage.
3. Ideate: Analyzing the idea by brain storming & develop ideas.  
4. Prototype: The experimental phase – Start to create solutions of each problem found. Create a model design based on your idea & data research.
5. Test: Present your model to the public & get their feedback & reviews about the design, so that you can see where your prototype works well & where it required improvement. Finalize your design with improvement & eradicate the available problems.

What is Graphic Designing?

The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) defined the graphic design as

“The art and practice of planning and projecting ideas and experiences with visual and textual content.”  

Design without functionality is incomplete. Function of Graphic Design is to convey a message or to communicate a message. When communicating a message via graphic design it’s not only words, we convey message with the help of visual which is very easy to understand. When communicating a message, it must have purpose like,

                To inform

                To educate

                To persuade

When you see a poster about an event, it means the poster is paste to inform the people about the mentioned event.

When you see social awareness poster like “Save water “poster near water tap it means the poster is pasted to educate the people to save water.

When you see a commercial poster about a product it means that the manufacture or supplier is trying to persuade you to buy their product.

Basic Fundamental concept of Graphic Design

i) Elements of Design

It is very important to be aware the basic elements of graphic design for better understanding the meaning of Graphic Design, they are used in combination or opposition with each other to create impactful designs. Elements of design are called the building blocks of design. The graphic design elements include;

• Line - the path of a moving point
• Shape - the contour of a flat object
• Typography - the visual depiction of language
• Form - a 3D object that has depth
• Texture - the tactile quality of a surface
• Space - the internal/external area of an object

ii) Principles of Design

The basic principle of design that helps you create awesome design.

• Balance - a distribution of equal visual weight
• Alignment - an arrangement forming a straight line
• Unity - the arrangement of elements to create a feeling of completeness
• Emphasis - visual prominence in design. Emphasis creates a focal point in a design        composition to bring attention to what important in it.
• Contrast - the arrangement of opposite element and effects. High contrast can help draw attention of the viewers to the most important part of the design.
• Proportion - scaling objects in relation to each other
• Pattern - an orderly repetition of an element
• Movement/Rhythm - a directed path of optical motion

Canva.com - Online easy designing website

 Canva.com 

Canva.com is a wonderful online designing website for designing social media post, covers, websites designing, logo designing, T-shirt designing, etc.

Canva.com is the online tool for designing & publishing purpose. Canva has the mission to empower everyone to design anything & post anywhere.

You can create your account with easy steps providing you email address & confirm verification link. By creating your account in canva.com, it holds your designing history which make easy to go back to your old designs whenever you needed. Creating account is not mandatory unless you want to upload your media files to include them in your design & keep your designing history.

From the home page you have multiple tabs for various purposes. In each tab like Templates you have different categories like social media, Personal, Business, marketing, education, trending & each category has sub-categories and very easy to use.

I’ve to mention here that in canva.com, most of the designs are for premium members only it means you have to pay for them but plenty of material available that are free of cost.

You can also upload your media (photo, images, video, etc.) to include them in your design.

The best thing about this website is easy to use like choose your design, drag & drop, font formatting, etc.

Below is a sample Facebook ad poster I’ve created within minutes;

Watch the video for the same tutorial;

Thank you for your time, hope you like it & benefit from this website for your designing. 

Please feel free to comment you feedback.

Thank you & See you soon with another topic.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog space and I really appreciate you've stand by and spending time here on the blog page.

The purpose of this blog to share my life journey & educate people with new things what I'm learning. Learning is my passion all the time. Currently I've started my journey of learning ecommerce & related topics like;

    Ecommerce management

    Website development

    How to work as freelancer

    Graphic designing (Adobe Illustrator specially my favorite)

I'll be also sharing my experience about my daily task & share with you new ideas & tricks.

I hope you enjoy my upcoming post & I'll try to be consistent and make it useful for you. Please feel free to share you ideas in the comment section.

Thank you very much :)