Re: Experimentation & Process

Hi Jen,

Great post to start of the semester! in regards to my design process I think it is all over the place. I find myself surfing the Internet, reading magazines, looking anywhere for design inspiration! One of the major problems I have is not finding a place to start. But once I do look out! the craziness continues. I create multiple pieces and place them all on my wall and as I walk in and out of my room I'm constantly trying to narrow down the pieces to work with. I'm sure you can start to see how dysfunctional this sounds already. But it works for me, it's "my process" as of now (one that needs changing). My goal for this semester is turn my design process into a more professional process so that I can be organized and not all over the place.

 I found the links posted below very helpful and saved most of them to my bookmarks folder, I can't wait to see where this class takes us all! 

Re: Experimentation & Process

Over the years, I've come to realize how important the design process is to the end product. Starting out, I don't think I truly appreciated how crucial the process is to feeling you have an effective piece. It always felt like I was all over the place and throwing stuff together. But now, when I have awesome inspiration, a creative topic, an open minded client or anything that really gets me motivated right from the start, my process is always better which makes my end result much more successful.

Jen, I can totally agree about logo design. For whatever reason I feel so much pressure with designing a logo. Making design decisions that will be the identity of a certain company/person for (hopefully) the duration of it's existence is a huge commitment. For me, my process does include A LOT of experimentation, because I have such a hard time committing to an idea or concept. I like to make sure that I have explored every possibility to ensure that I make the best design decisions. Because let's be honest- there is nothing worse then having a piece that your aren't 100% proud of. I probably take a little more time than necessary to commit, but in order to sleep peacefully, I just have to do it. And I've just come to accept that as part of my process.

I know it may seem cliche, but I am a total pinterest advocate. If I feel stuck, I usually start there. In terms of design, its 1000% better than a google search if you need a little push. Most the time, I end up on a design/typography blog that was originally pinned, but it's definitely a sure fire way to find some creative juices that you may be lacking.

Re: Experimentation & Process

For years I have been creating stuff (invitations, announcements, flyers, etc.) for family, friends and small start-up businesses and non-profits. My inspiration for an idea always came from what they desired. I was introduced to the Pub Design program by a former student because she knew how much I loved graphic design but she also knew I never had formal training. After my first project in Typography I, I felt I had no business in this program. I had no idea what I was doing. I started out looking at assignments as work, homework to be exact so I went in on a project like ok I just have to get this done. But once I started looking at them as new ways to be creative, I think I took the pressure off of having to get it done. I began to embrace the thought, hey this can be fun! By the end of the semester I started producing much better pieces, partly because I developed a new approach to tackling design assignments. After taking Creative Concepts last semester, that process has developed even more. I still start out like mostly everyone else with an idea but instead of just jumping on the first thing that comes to mind, I look for alternative ways to produce the end result and not just jump to the obvious, easy, plain and simple. I also seek inspiration from creative works by others on blogs and websites like, You the Designer and Graphic Mania. Here is a great example of logos you may enjoy, 40 Clever logos that combine 2 concepts into one graphic.

Re: Experimentation and Process

A few thoughts regarding process:

1. No matter how much I work on an idea systematically, I often am struck with last minute inspiration. So, despite refining an idea and attempting to work it through to completion, I often wind up scrapping things at the last minute because a better idea smacks me in the face. Often, my new inspiration uses my working idea and takes it in a different direction. 

This is exactly what happened to me while working on my final project for Words and Images in the spring. The deliverable for the final project was a pitch book; throughout my work on the project--designing and redesigning a logo, picking treatments on which to use the logo, creating mockups, etc.--I had intended to turn in a traditional pitch book, much like the process books we had been creating all semester. Each element of the pitch had gone through a relatively straightforward process, with what I considered to be a normal evolution from idea to execution; even if my final logo looked nothing like the original one I had designed, it contained the same inspiration and context. 

As I was crankily beginning to assemble my final pitch book, I realized that my lack of inspiration and motivation was coming from my lack of interest in creating a traditional pitch book. I was trying to incorporate aspects of my inspiration--children's science textbooks from the 1950s and 60s--into a form that didn't highlight them. So, with 8 hours until the project was due, I decided to scrap the pitch book I had been so diligently assembling and create an imitation science textbook to pitch a rebranding. And I loved the result (still do). 

This is an example of my experimentation coming at the end of the process. I didn't deliberately experiment with form, but when inspiration struck, I ran with it. This doesn't always work, of course. And, for me, work-work-working on a idea is the most reliable way for me to find inspiration.

2. Sometimes inspiration comes from failure. You may have an amazing idea that doesn't solve the problem at hand; figuring out why an idea fails can help you figure out what would work. This approach might also help you break out of myopia. You keep working and working on an idea and it never seems to work. Look at WHY it's not working, or HOW it's not working. Answering these questions might help you find a new starting point, or at least point to a potential direction for your existing idea.

3. As cliche as it sounds, "necessity is the mother of invention." Having ideas that you might not necessarily have the technical skills to execute can provide an opportunity to try a different way of acheiving the same goal. Can't make it in Illustrator? Try drawing by hand. Can't draw? Try collage.

Anyhoo, those are my thoughts for tonight. Sorry for no pictures :)

RE: Experimentation & Process

Hey Jen,

I completely agree with you, it seems like logos are the most daunting task in design for me as well. Unfortunately I can’t help you with trying to get out of the rut of one-minded ideas because I admit I have the same problem. I think my problem is that I become so attached to the concept and that makes it harder for me to take a step back and reevaluate what’s going wrong with my design. The most useful way for my to get back on track is to get feedback from other designers they usually have a pretty good idea about what’s going wrong and it usually something that I probably don’t see when I look at the same piece. I admire designers who can derive a variety of ideas from concept by using an organic material. I never tried to create a design using organic typography or thought of a logo that I could have created out of that material but I have seen some other designers who have taken on the task on Bēhance and their work comes out looking amazing. But I do think that would be a pretty awesome idea for a class so that as a designer we could expand the way we think about how we design materials. I mean it would differently provide us with an advance in our design process.

Check out some of their awesome work.

(Check out their portfolio Bēhance)

(Check out their work on Bēhance)

A designer that I like is Julie Zhuo because to her its not about the end result of a design because to be honest sometimes the end result stinks but its more about the journey that got you their and how that concept could take you to a complete different way.

I really liked your subject maybe I'll try a little experimentation. 

Re: Experimentation & Process

Good post to start us off, Jen.

I can relate to your struggles with process, although my own are just a tad different.

The exhilaration I get from the design process is almost always in the idea stage. I find that once I have a good idea, more (and better) ideas are sure to follow. I think I have learned to be diligent and patient in this stage of the process, and I really enjoy laboring and participating in the birth of the idea that becomes the solution—“The One”.

Here comes the challenge, which is twofold:

1. After I birth this beautiful, bouncing idea, I am exhausted. I have little, if any, motivation or energy to get started on the actual follow-through—raising the little bastard, if you will—so instead I take a nap.
   
   I could fill libraries with monstrous books full of ideas that I never acted on.
   
   The ideas that I’ve sent to this purgatory (worse than death, I’d say) are good, I think. But, I have a hunch that I’m losing out on a key part of the process. As with the idea stage, where one appears and many more follow, I suspect that once I started acting on a solution, that, too, would continue to evolve and grow into its best version.
   
   The ideas I do end up acting on—for class or work, because I “have to”*—are usually stunted due a constrained timeline. I simply don’t have (or I don’t give myself) the time that the project really needs.


2. Once I arrive at an idea, it often requires expertise that extends far beyond my own. (This is why my dream job, at the moment, is more in the creative direction realm: I come up with ideas surrounded by a team of incredibly talented people, who actually have the know-how and chutzpah to get them done.)

Before I continue, let me first say that being enrolled in this program is helping me refine my process and correct some of these problems. I’m miles from where I used to be, which is encouraging.

But, since my problem is twofold, I’ll offer a twofold solution, which was presented to me in a quote attributed to Albert Einstein:

I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent; curiosity, obsession and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me to my ideas.

What are we to learn from this?

1. It’s not the idea that comes first, according to Einstein anyway, so I need to stop patting myself on the back for fleeting thoughts I deem to be “good ideas”.

Work first. Work, work, work, work, work, and harder work. Then, maybe, an idea. 

1. I mentioned earlier that I only see ideas to completion when I “have to”. After I wrote that, I felt deeply troubled, and I realized what a big part of the problem is: most of the time, I only do what I “have to”, a.k.a. , stuff I’m getting evaluated on.

There’s a word in Einstein’s quote that stuck with me: obsession. 

I should be obsessed with my ideas.

Not in the sense that I become enamored with them, and then can’t see past them to what could be better solutions. You touched on that, Jen.  

Rather, I should be so obsessed with my ideas that I HAVE TO GET THEM DONE, or else I will go crazy(ier).

This is where it comes full circle: when you work so hard to get to an idea, when you really invest in your creativity, you’ll naturally become obsessed with seeing it to fruition.

If I could have maybe one or two of those in my life, I’d be happy.

*This phrase is going to come up later, and it’s very important. The meaning behind it is quite possibly the entire theme of this post. Please keep that in mind and, if you feel it necessary, go back, read it again, and let the phrase marinate for a few moments.

Experimentation & Process

I have to say that I find logos difficult to design--partly, this feeling has to do with the fact that my process can become myopic (more on that in a bit), and partly, this feeling has to do with the fraught levels of expectation or requirement that logos seem to me to bring along with them. You want a logo to distill the idea of the brand, to appeal to the target audience and let that audience know what the brand represents, all in an iconic representation that works at any size or context the client needs. So, yeah, no pressure. All of that can seem overwhelming.

And here's where I get to my process being myopic. When I have an idea that I like, that I think is strong (and this is true both for my design work and my writing, where most of my experience is), I have real difficulty breaking away from that idea and trying something different. Which makes this course and its focus on process a bit daunting. But this course is probably also the perfect place for me to be at this point. After all, if I'm worried that my process limits my ideas, isn't a course that forces me to focus on that process (even more so than Words and Images did this past Sprint) just what I need?

And this leads me to why I started the blog here with process--completely unsure of how to start us off, I of course looked at some design blogs, finding a few posts related to other designers' process. From this post on Graphic Exchange, I followed the linkage rabbit hole to the Behance gallery of a Russian logo designer named Pavel Emelyanov. And just look at the variety of ways he drafts his logos:

The Behance gallery (linked above and if you click the image) includes animated depictions of his process in creating various logos.

On David Airey's personal blog (he's the designer behind Logo Design Love), I came across this post, which is sort of about process, but more about experimentation, as it's titled "Keep Experimenting," and is accompanied by this awesome grass letter form by "design student Sarah Hanson":

What I found most interesting is this piece of advice that Airey quotes from Drew de Soto, a UK designer and author of What to Put in Your Portfolio and Get a Job:

I have no interest in the fact that you tried the name of a new brand for double cream in different typefaces. I am interested if you tried to write in cream, or grass, or whatever, and that led you to a certain type style or treatment.

It seems like such a simple idea to try working in a different media. I'm used to working with pencil and paper and drafting out experimental type options before working with the computer, but I've never really experimented with found type or with creating type so organically out of a liquid, or out of food, or out of physical objects. And it's not that I necessarily think I'll do that this semester, because who knows whether it will be useful for my projects after just one night of class, but...it is useful to consider what other techniques for experimentation I haven't thought about.

So, here's my question(s) to you, in case you want a place to start your reply:

• How are you feeling about your process?
• What designers' processes have you come across that you admire?
• What techniques for experimentation do you use/have you used that take your work somewhere unexpected or interesting (even if the ultimate design was different)?
• If you're like me and sometimes find you've limited your own ideas, how do you break out of that?