Design Process Master Class

One of the most important parts of your creative approach should always be your design process.

A solid design process is the ultimate path to harnessing your creativity and yielding high-quality results.

If you don’t currently have a design process you can confidently lean on or you struggle to harness your creativity, then this video is going to help you out.

Let's get into it!

In the design industry, the first step in the design process will typically start with a design brief.

A good design brief is the foundation of every successful design project, outlining the goals, challenges, and direction for our creative endeavours.

This isn't just paperwork; it's the first step to understanding and solving the design problem at hand.

In this video, we start with the first step in the design process by reviewing a design brief

Let's dive in, see what's in store and get ready to tackle this poster challenge with creativity fueled by clarity and direction.

Let’s get into it!

When creating a poster design, it can really help to undertake some initial research to help spark ideas.

This step is optional, you don't have to undertake research, however, this can give you some inspiration if you’re not sure what you want to create initially and can also be good if you have an idea in mind for a particular theme, or style that you may want to research further.

Moving into the second step of the design process, we're diving into a crucial discovery step: Visual research and inspiration

In this video, we are going to look at some techniques to research and some good places to get inspiration.

Let's dive in, get hyped for our design project and gather some research

Let’s get into it!

Depending on how much time one will spend on initial research one may cover a lot of ground and accumulate lots of creative options.

When we have explored enough research it’s then time to edit this down.

It’s the synthesis of visual research that becomes crucial and can determine the direction of your potential design solution.

Moving into the third step of the design process, we're now looking to focus on a more decisive direction for our poster design, and we do this by creating mood boards.

Mood boards are our visual brainstorming tools that bring our ideas, inspirations, and visual direction into focus.

Mood boards are great to keep you focused on a particular direction and can also be good to share with work colleagues or even clients to help present and sell your design intentions.

In the last step, we were thinking divergently and looking outwards, in this step, we start to think convergently, where we will want to look inwards.

In this video, I’ll be demonstrating how I develop my mood boards for poster design.

So let's get into it!

In the early stages of the design process, especially for poster design, as well as researching layout and style, it’s practical to think about typefaces.

Moving to the fourth step of our design process, here we delve into the art of choosing typefaces for our poster design.

Typography is not just about readability; it's about personality, tone, and impact. The right typeface can elevate your design, convey the right message, and resonate with a particular audience.

Before we start thinking about poster design layouts, it helps to have a good idea of the style of typefaces we will want to use, to capture the right result in our design when we come to lay out our posters later.

By deciding on our typography early, we ensure we consider options that are well thought out and are appropriate for our design solution.

This also offers a seamless transition into our artwork phase later, keeping our creative flow uninterrupted and saving precious time during the layout phase, where we can hit the ground running.

So to make the process of creating my artwork easier and to have something to start with, I like to be ready with at least a handful of typefaces.

In this part of the class, we'll explore how to choose typefaces that align with our mood board, message, and aesthetics.

Let's dive into the world of typography, and prepare ourselves for a smooth and efficient process.

So let’s get into it!

When it comes to Poster Design one key principle we should always consider is alignment.

Alignment is how we make can sense of a design, how we can create order, structure, and suggest relationships between visual elements which can all lead to a clear sense of visual hierarchy in our design, which is something we should always be striving for.

When we design a poster we should always be thinking about alignment and one of the key ways to focus on alignment and help with alignment in our poster design is to use grids.

Moving to the fifth step of our design process, here we look to review poster grids, that we can use in our design.

Starting with a blank canvas can often be bewildering, but if we start with a grid, It can help give us a framework to help layout our visual elements.

If you sometimes struggle with your design and want more ideas and inspiration, then this video is going to help you out!

In this video, I am going to discuss grids and the various grids you can consider using which is really important for those of you who want to improve on your layouts.

So let's get into it!

At the heart of every great poster, and indeed, every great design, lies a powerful idea.

In today's fast-paced, technology-driven world, it's tempting to dive straight into digital tools and start creating.

Before we launch our creative software, there's a critical step that ensures our designs aren't just visually appealing but are meaningful and effective.

Moving to the fifth step of our design process, here we undertake the process of generating ideas for our poster design.

Before we jump into software tools, it's crucial to take some time to think about our design intentions and the direction we would like to go in.

It’s an important time to reflect on our mood board and begin to use our imagination to generate ideas, and one of the most effective ways to do this is by sketching.

Sketching is not just about drawing; it's about translating our thoughts and inspirations into tangible concepts. It's where our ideas begin to take shape, offering a direct path from imagination to visualization.

Sketching is a timeless, tried and tested process that has worked for hundreds of years.

As we continue into the fifth step of our design journey, we move into a new phase where we enter into the realm of sketching to generate visual concepts for our poster design.

This hands-on approach ensures that when we move into design software, we’re building on a solid foundation of well-thought-out ideas, not just improvising on the screen.

I find there is more spontaneity, and chemistry when sketching, a lot more magic can happen on the age than on the screen, also ideas can come very quickly when sketching which allows us to realise creative solutions much faster.

In this part of the class, we’ll dive into sketching techniques that lay the groundwork for our poster designs.

You’ll learn how this crucial step not only streamlines the design process but also elevates the final product.

So let's grab our pens and pencils and start sketching our way to compelling designs.

Everything we have done up to this point in the class has been in preparation for this moment where we begin to bring our design to life.

Moving to the sixth step of our design journey, we enter the 3rd phase of the design process where we come to artwork our design on the computer.

In this video, I’ll demonstrate how to use the tools of InDesign to create this poster design specifically and later we will look at how to make some variations.

To create our poster in InDesign we are going to cover the following key steps:

STEP - 1 - PROJECT FOLDER SET UP

STEP - 2 - DOCUMENT SET UP

STEP - 3 - GRID SETUP

STEP - 4 - WORKING WITH TYPE

STEP - 5 - WORKING WITH IMAGE

STEP - 6 - WORKING WITH COLOUR

STEP - 7 - REFINE COMPOSITION

STEP 8 - CREATE LAYOUT VARIATIONS

STEP - 9 - EXPORTING

This is a methodical process that will ensure we create quality poster designs and not leave anything unchecked.

So get ready for an epic design adventure!

After this video, you will be able to create dynamic typographic posters like this in Adobe InDesign super easily!

So let’s get into it!

If you want to create a really dynamic and fresh typographic poster design in Illustrator then this is the video for you!

In this video, we will be looking at creating a poster for a sneaker company looking to promote its product line where we will be using photography, typography and graphic images as part of the poster design.

In this video, I’ll demonstrate how to use the tools of Illustrator to create this poster design specifically and later we will look at how to make some variations.

To create our poster in Illustrator we are going to cover the following key steps:

STEP - 1 - PROJECT FOLDER SET UP

STEP - 2 - DOCUMENT SET UP

STEP - 3 - GRID SETUP

STEP - 4 - WORKING WITH TYPE

STEP - 5 - WORKING WITH IMAGE

STEP - 6 - WORKING WITH COLOUR

STEP - 7 - REFINE COMPOSITION

STEP 8 - CREATE LAYOUT VARIATIONS

STEP - 9 - EXPORTING

This is a methodical process that will ensure we create quality poster designs and not leave anything unchecked.

So get ready for an epic design adventure!

After this video, you will be able to create dynamic typographic posters like this in Adobe Illustrator super easily!

So let’s get into it!

Now, whether to a client or in your portfolio, the way you showcase your work can be just as important as the design itself.

Presentation is more than just showing off a finished product; it’s about providing a window into the world where your design lives and its context, to convey the story and the strategy behind your design.

Presenting your design allows viewers to see your work in situ, helping them to understand not just what the design looks like, but how it interacts with its environment and speaks to its audience.

Moving to the seventh and final step of our design process, here we undertake the process of presenting our poster design

In this video, we'll explore how professional presentation techniques can elevate your designs, making them more compelling and impactful, We’ll take a look at where you can find good mockup samples and we’ll look at how you can use a presentation deck like this to present your work.

By the end of this video, you'll learn how to craft presentations that do more than just display your work— but narrate the design’s purpose and place, ensuring it resonates with the right audience.

So let's get into it!

This brings us to the end of the poster design journey.

I hope you have enjoyed it and most importantly you have gained valuable knowledge to harness your creativity and you have something to show for it!

I hope the main takeaway from the master class is that design process is key to producing high-quality results.

Taking the time to follow the key design process steps can ensure you harness your creative skills to produce work you never thought possible.

All my best work has come from taking the time to undertake a design process, It has taken, me many years to harness my process and I hope it can benefit you in your design career.

Thank you for joining me in this epic creative adventure!