the design process

kelly ludwig, assistant professor kcai graphic design department

(excerpted from “Visualising Information for Advocacy” by tacticaltech.org & informationactivism.org)

the design process

1. Examine

2. Understand

3. Ideate

4. Experiment

5. Distill

design process

01 examine: identify challenges

what is your aim?

• What is the existing situation? • What specific problem are you wanting to solve or

change are you trying to make? • Why?

• What changes could improve the situation?

Examine

• Dig into the problem(s) • Look at the history, the context, the objects, and the

people involved • Identify the audience(s)

• Begin to research thoroughly

identify goals

• Change of conversation? • Shift in understanding? • Identifying a need? • Define the problem

02 understand

02 Understand

• Conduct audience research • Understand your research • Go deeper and find patterns.

• Establish open questions to build on • This is the analytical phase

02 Understand

• Research • Create strategy • Gather information • Interpret information • Get feedback

03 ideate

03 Ideate

Brainstorm the big picture • Have lots of ideas, good and bad.

• Create numerous thumbnails daily • Don’t stop at the obvious or impossible • It flows naturally from the understanding phase • Goals and needs to work from

04 experiment

04 Experiment

Rapid prototyping & continuous beta • Try something out • Make some things • Fail cheap and fast • Exhaust those ideas and prototype like crazy • Get feedback from audience and test

04 Experiment

• Construct • Digital development • Mock up • Analysis • Testing

05 distill

05 Distill

Refine and finalize • Strip down your solution to the essentials and tell the

story to others • What have you done and what will you do next? • Making sure your work has memorable impact • Get feedback from audience

05 Distill

• Implementing • Final design execution & images • Production

• finalize files for production • make final prints • gather digital assets for output

the creative brief

• Project background, aims and the issue

• The main message • The desired outcomes • Target audience(s) • Mood board • Process documentation

• Media/format you will be using • Distribution • Budget • Timeline

Towards the end of this project, you will create a creative brief as part of your presentation. These are the items that will need to be included.

• Visualising Information for Advocacy, tacticaltech.org • Designing for Social Change, Andrew Shea • informationactivism.org • design process kills creativity, design process creates

creativity by Daniel Stillman