"its all in the talent and creative side of your brain, son!"
It's easy Mike! See that button on the top right of your keyboard? The one marked "design"? Just press it!
;)
Oh OK I'll say something useful. Here's what I do. When coming up with a concept I sit down with a big piece of paper and I write down words. I write down words the client has used to describe their company, product whatever. Words that describe their target audience, what they want to project to their audience etc. Then I get out a Thesaurus and I write down synonyms for those words that inspire me. Then, when I've exhausted this approach, I think about concepts that communicate these words and meanings.
While I'm doing this I flip through some of my big collection of design books for inspiration, and bookmark things that seem relevant. Not "I'm going to use this rounded-corner trick" but "I like the way this design uses flat colour or large type next to big spaces".
After I have some thumbnail sections of ideas I want to pursue and some notes on the appropriate fonts and colour schemes, only then do I go to the computer and start working with mockups.
That's one approach. Here's some other ideas I've gathered from various sources into my notebook:
<x-tad-smaller>Interviewing the client
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>- what are you trying to communicate, and why?
- who needs this information, and why?
- what does the audience already know? What does it need to know?
- what single, unique, focused message should the audience walk away with after reading or seeing this piece?
- what have you done to communicate this information before?
- how do you expect your audience to respond? How in turn will you respond to their response?
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>Empty the brain of all information onto paper after the interview
Research
Process the information
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>- review notes, reorganise info, restate info in a variety of forms, readress the project objective, reword as a set of design criteria.
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>Allow time for the information to marinate in the brain
Stefan Sagmeister's Approach
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>1. Think about the project from any point of view - your mom's, yours, from the point of view of colour, of form - and write each response down on a single index card.
2. Spread all the index cards out on a big table and see if you can find the relationship between the different thoughts.
3. Forget about the whole thing.
4. The idea will strike you miraculously when you least expect it.
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>
</x-tad-smaller><x-tad-smaller>"Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort. "
"Do not think of your faults, still less of others' faults; look for what is good and strong, and try to imitate it. Your faults will drop off, like dead leaves, when their time comes. "
"There is nothing in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and he who considers price only is that man's lawful prey."
quotes from John Ruskin 1819-1900
</x-tad-smaller>Peter
PS I stole the button design on www.cinema4duser.com from shauninman.com
<x-tad-bigger>
</x-tad-bigger>Universal Head�
Design That Works.
7/43 Bridge Rd Stanmore
NSW 2048 Australia
T (+612) 9517 1466
F (+612) 9565 4747
E [EMAIL PROTECTED]
W www.universalhead.com
