No matter what you're designing, designers have a special code we all follow. It's called The Process.

Subscribe: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/ask-a-designer-anything/id1190920993/ (ITUNES) | http://subscribeonandroid.com/www.omnycontent.com/d/playlist/ed1ec2a8-1468-4efb-8487-a75200bf3e28/5a974391-51f6-4ae3-aba2-a75200bf8af4/c00377fc-c1e3-4e0e-9013-a75200bf8af9/podcast.rss (ANDROID) | http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=127134&refid=stpr (STITCHER) | http://www.omnycontent.com/d/playlist/ed1ec2a8-1468-4efb-8487-a75200bf3e28/5a974391-51f6-4ae3-aba2-a75200bf8af4/c00377fc-c1e3-4e0e-9013-a75200bf8af9/podcast.rss (RSS FEED)

Music and links from this episode

http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jesse_Spillane/Sky_Ship/Jesse_Spillane_-_Sky_Ship_-_11_Gorgon (Gorgon by Jesse Spillane)

http://freemusicarchive.org/music/rui/La_pluie_de_ltre/rui_-_La_pluie_de_ltre_-_07_No_sudden_movements (No sudden movements by rui)

http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Fields_of_Ohio/Our_Paper_Hearts_Drift_In_Tunnels_To_Sleep_In_Little_Boxes_Under_Ohia_Seas/Fields_Ohio_-_Our_Paper_Hearts_Drift_In_Tunnels_To_Sleep_In_Little_Boxes_Under_Ohia_Seas_-_06_Interstate_70_Rain_Chants (Interstate 70 Rain Chants by Fields Ohio)

Line-by-line notes

Buildings

Bridges

Roads

Websites

Restaurant menus

They’ll all made by following a set process

This process, whilst usually similar for every designer

Allows designers all over the world to make very special things

This is AADA, and I’m Craig Burgess

MUSIC

A problem

Every design process

Whether you’re designing a city or designing a business card

Begins with a problem

Design only really has one purpose: to solve problems

And if there’s no problem to solve, there’s no point designing anything

These problems range from simple stuff like a problem of a business not looking professional enough

To complicated problems like too many traffic jams on a particular road

You can’t find a solution, until you’ve identified the problem

And the design process is the only one that can solve such a problem

After that, designers start to collect information to understand the problem

This step is a mix of research and finding inspiration

By seeing what others have done before, you can analyse what went wrong

And of course, what went right and what you may want to emulate

I’ve been pretty vocal in some past episodes about the inspiration gathering step

And being very careful not to cross the line of inspiration to downright copying other’s work

Now comes the fun part, ideas generation

This is my favourite part of any design project

Being alone with a sketchbook and working on ideas

Younger designers too often skip this step, or go about it in the wrong way

The point of the ideas step is to indiscriminately create ideas

That is, to create ideas without thinking they’re good, bad, or anything else

At this step, it doesn’t matter if your idea is bad

Or if you think you’ve found a solution to the design problem

That is not the point here, it’s just to let your brain be free

And make ideas

And then take those ideas, and turn them into solutions

This is a really difficult step, because now you’ve got so many ideas

You need to analyse them, and work out which ones are good

Or appropriate solutions

Lots of designers like to leave this step to their clients

They’ll create quite a few ideas, and ask their clients to pick which is their favourite

I prefer to be much more critical at this stage

And I normally only present one solution to a client

If we give the client the choice, we’ll either end up with a frankestein’s monster of a design with lots of solutions turned into one

Or we’ll end up with the solution we like the least

It isn’t the...