How to Approach Your Masterpiece
A design is typically a blueprint or design for the building or production of an item, an instance of it or even for the implementation or procedure of that design, product or procedure. The word ‘design’ itself denotes a form and is derived from the Latin ‘disease’. Designing, on the other hand, derives from the Greek word ‘design’, which means ‘modification’ or ‘improvement’. The verb design generally describes the act of creating a design. Designing, therefore, can also be seen as the application of knowledge and techniques in order to create a thing, a model or a procedure.
Creativity, on the other hand, is an important component of the creative process and is a necessary part of the learning and development process. Creativity, however, is not a ‘one-time’ activity. Creative activities build upon themselves, taking shape and form over time. In short, creativity is a continuous process that calls upon many resources and skills. So a good design involves not only the application of knowledge, but also the whole range of human creativity – including visual, auditory, kinesthetic, writing, and other senses.
Design Thinking Creativity is most clearly seen in disciplines such as graphic design, web design and industrial design where objects and materials have to be produced according to some definite, pre-existing blueprint. Design thinking includes many different types of thinking, including lateral thinking (thinking outside the boundaries of the group that has issued the design); working within a specific group; and parallel thinking (the ability to think of solutions to problems in totally new ways). Lateral thinking, of course, does not extend to logic, which of course is not a required ingredient of good design thinking. Parallel thinking, by contrast, permits you to consider many different design possibilities but does require certain ‘rarity of detail’ regarding the details of the generated design.
Design Theory The goal of good design is to make things easy to use, clear and precise. A designer must possess a good grasp of mathematics, preferably arithmetic, because it is through math that a designer usually sees the big picture. Design theory then tells us how to plan and organize things so that their functionality can easily be understood. It also tells us what work needs to be done, the degree of difficulty, and what kind of output would constitute success.
Design Thinking For the best results, a designer should employ multiple design types, each contributing small, yet significant pieces to the overall design. For example, a designer who produces logos should have a firm grasp on typography, whether using fonts of different sizes, different colors or just using different types of lettering. He must also have a good understanding of page layout, whether using blocks of text on a vertical or horizontal plane, and what effects these different elements might have on the finished product. In general good designers know a great deal about how graphic images work, particularly using image composition and using clipping path tools. But a designer must be very careful not to overdo his use of multiple types of graphics and text, because this can often distract from the final visual effect. The designer also needs to be sure not to overdo the use of white space, because too much white space makes a design look sleepy and lacks substance.
Empathy Phase – Designers who use the empathize phase effectively are masters at communicating with their clients. They have developed an understanding of what their client wants from them, what he or she hopes to achieve, what would satisfy the customer, and how they can best accomplish all of this through their design process. During the empathize phase, the designer communicates with his or her client, an integral part of the design process. Clients are more apt to work with them if they feel that the designer really “understands” them.