How do I get started with a graphic designer?
Will they understand my vision?
Will I like what they create?
How much information do I need to provide?
The start of the design process can be a daunting one and involves sharing as much information as possible with your designer, to make sure that you're on the same page with a clear understanding of what's needed.
Depending on what kind of project you're wanting to get started on (website, logo and branding, business cards or templates, etc.), the information you need to share will be slightly different.
Your designer will take the lead in this information-gathering process, but things to think about before your first meeting would be:
- Describe your brand/business, and your brand voice. Are you informal or very formal in your messaging?
- Do you have current brand guidelines that you would like to follow? Can you provide all assets such as colours, fonts, images etc. to the designer?
- What is your goal for this project? What are you hoping to achieve?
- Who is your target audience?
- Do you have any inspiration or pictures that you can share?
- If you don't currently have a brand guidelines, do you have particular colours, fonts or images that we should consider when creating concepts for this?
After your designer has a basic idea of what you want to achieve, they will go away and start brainstorming ideas, and looking at inspiration.
From here, they'll get stuck into creating the design, looking at multiple different iterations to see what works and what doesn't. If you're working with a design agency, this will usually be a collaborative process between a few designers.
Once your designer is happy with the first concepts they've created, they'll send these through to you to review. This is when you get to give your comments and feedback on what they've created.
The process of reviewing and reworking the initial concepts will continue until you're happy with the finished product. Many designers will offer a set number of reviews in their initial quote, with additional work after that being at an additional fee.
