Having a Strong Design Process Helps Finalise Projects Smoother
Get disciplined in your process and learn from past projects by debriefing them
I’m So Glad You're Here! - Thanks for sticking with me!
You have been grafting away for weeks, months, sometimes longer on a project and you're now at a stage where you can finally sit back, have a rest and chill out.
The final design work has been approved, you have sent the client the final invoice to pay before you release the work to them.
It is great that you have followed your process with the book, debriefed it and both you and the client are happy with the final outcome.
By following your process you are disciplined, and by following the brief and researching your client to solve their design related issues you are intelligent.
Massimo Vignelli, a legendary designer once quoted:
When you’re lost and sinking deep in a project your mind tends to shift its focus into survival mode and this is never good as vision will narrow making it harder to complete.
There is no time to examine or observe your mental and emotional process, there are no late nights to catch up and regroup as before you know it that time has passed and your still sitting there wondering what it is you need to do to pull this around.
It’s tough running your own design business or working as a freelance designer. You need to wear many hats, there is no backup or project manager you can turn to for help to step in while you get yourself in order.
When the boat is sailing smoothly you don’t want to rock it out of control and disrupt the process of overthinking the situation more than you need to.
It’s a great feeling when things go as planned or better than expected and you can follow the process and
“Just Go With It”
Another quote I have followed since being in comprehensive or high school for my American friends.
I have always been an over thinker, but I remember I was over thinking way too much as a teen.
Always questioning myself and worrying about what others would think or say.
“How am I going to handle it?” …“should I do this?” …”should I do that?” “What will they think?”
I'm always trying to put other people first before myself when I should have been focusing on myself.
Since hearing this quote I have always gone with my gut feeling and never second doubting myself, and things work out just fine if you follow your gut instinct and stop over thinking things.
Now I’m not saying overthinking is a bad thing in fact it’s a good quality to have if used correctly, but not when you’re doubting yourself with it.
Anyway, back to the project.
A negative way of thinking:
let’s say you did not have a solid process in place, you just found out what the client wants with no real information extraction to create a brief or goal setting etc,
Just keep going until it’s finished and the client is happy, it may take twice as long with all sorts of inconveniences popping up along the way but as long as we stick at it its ok we don’t really need to do all that extra work beforehand.
We will get there in the end and once it’s done we won’t need to revisit that project anymore if things go well, what could we possibly learn from perfection? Or following the same process over and over again?
This is the wrong way of thinking and where discipline comes in!
What we should be thinking is:
We have a solid process in place that we follow and trust.
The client understands our process and the information they need to give us.
We have the correct measures in place to extract a good brief from the client that we can turn into a set of goals for the project direction moving forward that the client will agree to.
We need to know where we are at each stage of the project, keeping the client informed with milestone stages to make sure the project is moving in the right direction.
Once the final design has been approved and signed off, the client will pay the final invoice before files are released to them.
We worked towards our goals, nailed the brief, both ourselves and our clients are happy and we then get paid for an enjoyable job well done!
A more positive way of thinking is needed, a solid informative process will improve your project flow, your skills as a designer and your business. It will also allow you to attract and work with better clients in the future.
I wrote an article about how Valued Repeat Clients Make Your Business Better I’m sure you will find it helpful.
Be Intelligent and Improve Your Process
We are all familiar with the famous Albert Einstein quote “Creativity is intelligence having fun.”
For a lot of designers, creating a solid process may not be fun or even creative for them, but it can be, and will make, future projects so much enjoyable to work on.
Personally I can never understand why a creative individual does not have a process they follow.
As a designer I like to design, create things, and come up with new ideas and ways of doing things its’s part of who I am as a creative individual.
To be honest the last thing I want to be doing is working in Illustrator or Photoshop they are just tools I use to digitise my work.
Sketch Flow / Mind Mapping Diagrams
The real thrill to me is pen and paper, sketching and writing down new ideas seeing something being formed on paper.
To me real creativity happens on paper before the thought of the computer pops into my head.
The same can be said when it comes to creating a process, getting creative with your notes, and taking its fun.
You don’t need to write pages and pages of notes, you can sketch it in the form of a flow diagram.
I did these sketches a few years ago and they are not polished just rough to demonstrate how I take notes and make it fun:
I call them sketch flows and I try and display my ideas in a creative way using shapes and arrows to show my stages of thinking.
It may not be for everyone but as a creative who enjoys using pen and paper I personally find it fun.
You can do the same when mind mapping it’s the same principle just incorporating the illustrative way of a sketch flow diagram.
I find that when I’m doodling when in the process of doing a sketch flow or mind map it triggers further ideas and creativity, again these are just rough and did not take ages to do its just fast and fun and nice to look back at.
You can see the tweet and link to the article here:
Where to Start? …Things to Consider
Ok so don’t be thinking I’ll do this when the next project comes in! No, this is too late and will end up confusing things.
Let’s start now and kind of work backwards looking at your last project and kind of debrief it and learn more about the process you did and what needs to change to make it better.
Let’s Debrief a Project
Take out your note pad and write down the project name for reference and let’s get to work on clarifying our thoughts, you can be as creative as you like while doing this or just simply jot down some notes.
Just remember that this process of note-taking is to gather thoughts and ideas to better understand the process, and it can also present and develop further ideas and areas we did not expect.
Below are some areas to look at when you go through debriefing:
Always Remember To Be Nice To Yourself
It’s always good to start on a positive note as this is the whole purpose of this exercise.
I know there will be designers out there thinking “My last project was horrible!” I understand but the project is finished now and we are learning from it.
Try to find something in every project good or bad that you can feel good about. Even if it’s the tiniest of things such as you learnt a new technique in illustrator, or a new phrase to explain something or something that made the project a little easier to complete.
Write it down to solidify it so it is in your mind for the next project and you also gain positivity from this.
Trying to Figure out What Went Wrong
Be truly honest with yourself and don’t be afraid to self-evaluate nobody is perfect, think about what went wrong even if it was your fault, what could you have done differently to improve the process or turn the situation around?
Look for things that you did that you will never do again, did you explain it wrong could you have explained it better? Once you figure it out, create yourself a little black book of lessons learned for you to return to from time to time.
Life and everything in it is a constant learning path. We follow learning new things every day it’s our job to do so it’s part of evolution so make it worth it and aim to be the best you possible.
Was it a simple case of having a bad client and you missed the red flags? Learn How to Spot Difficult Clients and Their Red Flags in this article i wrote in a previous issue.
Review Financials
Once a project is finished and paid in full it’s quite easy to forget about the cost of the project.
It’s a good idea to calculate the hours you spent working on the project, does it match with the profit you made from the project, and was it a profitable project in the end?
If you calculate you spent more time on the project to what it paid you may need to think about raising your rates so you’re better compensated for your efforts.
If it’s a project for a particular client they may need some sort of risk factor built into their agreement to make sure you don’t end up working more hours than what the client is paying for.
This project may have gone really well, if that’s the case can you find more of these types of clients and projects and pursue a stronger relationship with this client for future referrals.
And finally be honest with yourself, is this type of work what you would like more of? If not make it make it a rule to not take on a certain type of work or work that is unprofitable as it’s clearly not worth it if you don’t enjoy it or being under paid.
I wrote an issue about validating and declining projects that you will find interesting Do Designers Choose Their Clients, Or Do Clients Choose The Designer? The article also includes my 6 P’s checklist i follow when validating prospective clients.
Ask For Feedback
When you work as a sole freelance designer and spend most of your time alone.
Personal and professional development growth can be more challenging as you don’t have project managers and art directors keeping you on track or someone who is available to ask questions and give advice.
Your own professional development and growth keeps your career interesting and your skillset sharp.
The idea would be to create a survey you can send out to clients you could either send them a google document to fill out their answers on, create a form on your website you can send them a link to, or use something like Google Surveys or Typeform to compile a simple survey to collect the information with.
Regardless of how the project was ask questions, include things like the process, the timeline, the relationship and the final deliverables.
Ask the client if there was anything you could have done or included to make the project better for them, and never ask a bold question like was it good or bad this type of answer gives no value to you what you are looking for.
What we need is context into the specific question to be able to improve on and understand what is good and what needs adjusting.
Clean up after your project is finished
I suppose it’s the same as everything else in life. Once you have finished something you clear away what you are not using anymore.
It’s the same with your project decluttering your desktop and filing system into an archive for backup.
Put all digital files related to the project into the correct folders, file any paperwork such as sketches and notes you have taken.
Update your social profiles with the new work if you do this not everybody does and that’s fine it your choice.
I don’t show every project I do some project I don’t even show on social, not because there is anything wrong with the work I’m just focused on other things and it’s quite time consuming.
Social media is not a high priority for gaining new clients for me so I focus on the things that work, such as creating case studies for my website portfolio.
As of writing this article, I currently have several I’m working on and have been doing for a while as it’s all time consuming tasks that need to be completed in stages.
You’ll find this issue I wrote interesting about: Displaying Your Work as a Designer
All these types of clean up tasks and finishing touches at the end of a project will allow you to refresh ready for a new start on a new project without the distractions of the previous project.
It’s not a distraction it’s all part of the process to keep things in order. Don’t let it take away your procrastination later down the line.
Conclusion
By taking yourself through these stages after a project may seem unnecessary to you. But in the end it’s these conscious, disciplined decisions we decide to make that lead us to becoming better designers, and ultimately, much more creative in our business processes that will in turn make the work more enjoyable in the future.
My question to you is what type of process do you have in place to identify, learn, and improve from?
Let me know in the comments section I would love to hear from you.
As i always say - “Stay curious & enthusiastic, and good things will happen!”
Thanks for reading. 🙂
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