To gain a better understanding of my design process, let me take you through each phase of a project and explain what may be involved:

The Discovery Phase allows me to gain a full understanding of your needs and provides me with the direction to ensure an efficient project workflow. Throughout this phase, I work to gather the appropriate information about your organization, goals, personality, and visual communication requirements through personal communications with you. Typically I like to set up an initial meeting in person (multiple meetings may be established depending on the situation) and request that you complete a design brief (a detailed document providing guidance on design, materials, size dimensions, colors, etc…).

Once I have a firm grasp of the organization’s needs, I will review the gathered information and provide suggestions on how best to maximize the effectiveness of the project. I will then work with you to produce a project scope establishing the costs, goals, and timeline to ensure that the project is completed in an efficient manner with superior end-results.

After the project structure and direction have been determined, I begin additional research on current trends in your specific industry. This helps provide further direction on how to approach the designs (i.e. – which style may work best, what fonts would be appropriate, and what information is most important to your users).

Upon completion of the research, I will then review and analyze all of the pertinent information from the previous phases and begin developing concepts (mind-mapping and sketching). This stage in the project allows for a great way to explore multiple visual solutions that can easily be refined prior to drafting concepts in digital format. Depending on the scope of the project, clients may be asked to approve sketched concepts before moving forward.

After the sketched concepts start to take form, I will then begin to digitally draft designs. During this phase, I will collaborate with you to finetune the design(s) as necessary, ensuring satisfactory results. In cases where multiple concepts are being presented, designs will typically be presented to you in a focus group manner, allowing you to concentrate on a single design. For instance, if you have 4 variations of a logo you would receive a slideshow with 4 different slides — 1 for each logo.

After receiving the final approval of the designs, I will prep the necessary files for use in the required formats.

Logo Design (full color and b/w): eps and ai files, jpeg and gif, tiff, and favicon.
Print Design: depends on the type of design, but typically you’ll receive a pdf and tiff version.
Web Design: All appropriate design files (.psds), markup (xhtml/css), and images (sliced and/or optimized).

Click here for more information on the various file types.

The appropriate files will be delivered in an electronic format (typically a zipped file made available through email or a file server).