Embrace Change

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So my final idea is to create a website that acts as an interactive process book for designers. Users will be able to create an account and upload a certain number of projects, under each project will be the four steps of the design process. For each step, other users will be able to add to the process in order to influence and help designers with their projects.

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New logo

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New name; Suggest.

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Layouts of other inspirational design websites.

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Mission Statement

To create customizable resource tools for graphic designers that aid in the design process. Our tools focus on efficiency and organization while inspiring and stimulating designers to stay on task and power through any project.

This tool is a place to store your creative process, while drawing inspiration from all over the web, allowing you to have that "creative epiphany" without getting off track or being set back by designer's block.

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Very rough website layouts.

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Brainstorming names | Word List #2

Inspiration is being drawn from all sources on the Internet, bringing it into project management

Creating ORDER out of CHAOS

Constellations, stars

Pyxis (Pixys?)

Abbreviation: Pyx Genitive: Pyxidis Translation: The Compass Box

A shape of a vessel from the classical world/Ancient Greek Pyxidium (seed vessel) Constellations Tons of them but only certain ones stand out at certain times Brightest star? Stellar Magnitude A focal point Something that stands out Stars: Vega, Avior, Arcturus

Airglow = the natural glow of the night sky due to reactions that take place in the earth’s upper atmosphere

Catena = a chain of crates

Chaos theory

Been observed in electrical circuits, lasers, oscillating chemical reactions, fluid dynamics

In nature = the dynamics of satellites in the solar system, time and evolution of the magnetic field of celestial bodies

LURE, Vamp, Nod; the nod, Signal, Moment of Clarity, Reveal, Awake, Prompt, Jog, Flicker, Flare, Glimmer, Suggest, Hint, Initiate, Stir up, Attune, Stimulate, Provoke, Complete, Finish, Accomplish, Pull off, Nail, Attain

Scrap; fusion of multiple ideas into one

Embolden, Revive, Vitalize, Vivid, Spur, Turn on, Awaken, Fabricate, Visualize, Woo, Concoct, Contrive, Formulate Formul8, Intrigue = Intreeg, Whip up, Flash, Beam, Burst, Glint, BUILD CASTLES IN THE AIR

Brainfood!

Wire + inspire = winspire

Seamless (design)

Imaging + pixel

Imagine + pop

Suggest

Insert

Design process – steps – what’s going to make you take that first step? – drive – pedal to the metal

Lead, Method (to your madness), Fuel, Brainfuel, Idea fuel, Creative fuel, Hamsters, Coming together, Connect + direct = dinect, Connect ideas, Synapse, Network, Association, Nexus , Merge (of ideas), Infinite + inspire, Supply, Galaxy, Flow, Stream, Current, Path, Straight shot, Marathon, Ping-pong, Interact, Momentum, Chain Reaction, Compass needle, Magnetic North, Bump road, Hurdles, Stages, Metamorphosis, Insight, Break through, Generate, Infispire, Spinfinate, Spir

Mendeleev’s creative process , Initiate, Reveal , Oracle, Chain reaction, Concatenation, Queue, Ripple, Actualize, Behind the scenes, Backstage

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Logo inspiration

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Design Process Survey

SURVEY

1. What type of design work do you do most frequently?

Client-based

Personal

School-related projects

2. What are the steps you use in your design process? (check all that apply)  

Project initiation/briefing

Orientation/research

Strategy

Exploration/development

Refinement

Production launch

Project completion

3. During what steps of the design process do you seek out inspiration? (check all that apply)

Project initiation/briefing

Orientation/research

Strategy

Exploration/development

Refinement

Production launch

Project completion

4. Where do you look for inspiration?  

Books

Other printed materials

Internet

5. If you selected the internet as one of your sources of inspiration, please list one or more websites you frequently go to.

6. Do you use any project management tools when designing?

Yes

No

Sometimes

o   If sometimes, specify when

7. What types of project management tools do you use?

To-do lists

Planner

Free online tools

Software

A combination of the above

8. Do you ever get sidetracked during the design process and wish you had something to keep you on task?

Yes

No

9. Where in the design process do you commonly get sidetracked? Where in the design process do you seek out inspiration?

10. If there were a free website that combined project management based on the design process with an integrated inspiration component that could get you through designer’s block, would you use it?

Yes

No

o   If no, why not?

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/295CZTR

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The Design Process

7 Design Process Steps Designers Should Follow

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Project Management: The Graphic Design Process

After having my creative epiphany that I would create an inspiration/project management website for designers, I did some more research on existing project management tools and the design process...

Project Management = the discipline of planning, organizing, securing and managing resources to achieve specific goals

Project = a temporary endeavor with a defined beginning and end (usually time-constrained, and constrained by funding and deliverables) undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives

-The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals and objectives while honoring the preconceived constraints

-Typical constraints are scope, time and budget

Approaches to Project Management

The Traditional Approach

            -Identifies a sequence of steps to be completed

                        1. Initiation

                        2. Planning and design

                        3. Execution and construction

                        4. Monitoring and controlling systems

-While the terms differ from industry to industry, the actual stages typically follow common steps to problem solving (defining the problem, weighing options, choosing a path, implementation and evaluation)

Critical Chain Project Management

-Puts more emphasis on the resources (physical and human) needed in order to execute project tasks

-Most complex part involves engineering professionals of different fields working together

-Application of Theory of Constraints; goal is to increase rate of throughput (completion rates) of projects in an organization

-Tasks on the critical chain are given priority over all other activities

Extreme Project Management

-Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) models designed to analyze and represent the tasks involved in completing the given project

-Several of these models are not well suited for multi-project company environments; most of them are aimed at very large scale, one time, non-routine projects

-Method of managing very complex and uncertain projects; differs from traditional project management mainly in its open, elastic and un-deterministic approach

-Main focus is the human side of the project/human interaction management, deals with complexities of human collaboration

Event Chain Methodology

-Another method that complements critical path method and critical chain project management methodologies

-Focused on identifying managing events and event chains that affect project schedules; helps to mitigate the negative impact of psychological heuristics and biases, as well as to allow for easy modeling of uncertainties in the project schedules

-Probabilistic moment of risk: an activity in most real-life processes is not a continuous uniform process; tasks are affected by external events, which can occur at some point in the middle of the task

-Event Chains: Events can cause other events, which will create event chains. These event chains can significantly affect the course of the project. Quantitative analysis is used to determine a cumulative effect of these chains on the project schedule

-Critical events or event chains: The single events or the event chains that have the most potential to affect the projects are the “critical events” or “critical chains of events” they can be determined by the analysis

-Project tracking with events: Even if a project is partially completed and data about the project duration, costs and events occurred is available, it is still possible to refine information about future potential events and helps to forecast future project performance

-Event chain visualization: Events and event chains can be visualized using event chain diagrams

PRINCE2

Process-based management

Agile Project management

Processes

-Initiation à Determines the nature and scope of the project; should include a plan that encompasses 1. Analyzing the business needs/requirements in measurable goals, 2. Reviewing of the current operations, 3. Financial analysis, including users and support personnel for the project, 4. Stakeholder analysis, including users, and support personnel for the project, 5. Project charter including costs, tasks, deliverables and schedule

-Planning or development à Plan time, cost and resources adequately to estimate the work needed and to effectively manage risk during project execution

determining how to plan (e.g. by level of detail or rolling wave);

developing the scope statement;

selecting the planning team;

identifying deliverables and creating the work breakdown structure;

identifying the activities needed to complete those deliverables and networking the activities in their logical sequence;

estimating the resource requirements for the activities;

estimating time and cost for activities;

developing the schedule;

developing the budget;

risk planning;

gaining formal approval to begin work.

            -Production or execution

            -Monitoring and controlling

            -Closing

Closing process group processes.[19] 

Closing includes the formal acceptance of the project and the ending thereof. Administrative activities include the archiving of the files and documenting lessons learned.

This phase consists of:[20] 

Project close: Finalize all activities across all of the process groups to formally close the project or a project phase

Contract closure: Complete and settle each contract (including the resolution of any open items) and close each contract applicable to the project or project phase.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management]

Existing Project Management Tools:

Basecamp: online project collaboration tool Category: productivity Audience: entrepreneurs, freelancers, small businesses, and groups inside big organizations Features:

Dashboard (latest activity)

To-Do's

Calendar

Time

Messages

Share files

(Also available on mobile phone)

freedcamp https://freedcamp.com/features Audience: Over 48 universitiies, 31 thousand professionals from 188 countries use Freedcamp every day Features:

Instant, email and sms notifications

Dashboard

Project templates

Communication

Security 

Gantt Project Cross-platform desktop tool for scheduling and management Features:     

Gantt chart (work breakdown structure, draw dependencies, define milestones)

 Resources (assign human resources to work on tasks, see their allocation)

 PERT chart

Export (save charts as PNG, generate PDF and HTML reportsInteroperate (import projects and export them to Microsoft formats, export spreadsheets)

Collaborate

Klok Audience: Graphic Designers Personal time tracking made easy Features:

Visual display of your time

Flexibile client/project

True time tracking

Timesheet export

Dashboard reporting

Import meetings

SpringLoops

                  Allows developers to collaborate code

The Graphic Design Process:

What is the Graphic Design Process?

Steps to an Efficient Graphic Design Process Graphic design process (GDP) is the art of putting together text or images using a variety of creative techniques such as drawing, painting and/or computerized effects. Aside from website designing, applications of graphic design process also include movies, television shows, or commercials.

Creating a graphic design masterpiece that will instantly stir-up interest and curiosity of purposeful as well as accidental website users and researchers is achieved by following an easy and efficient graphic design process. Basically, starting a graphic design project is a team effort between the website owner/s and graphic designer/s.

Here are easy and efficient steps to achieve great benefits in doing the graphic design process:

Meeting Begin your GDP job by setting up a meeting (live chat through Adobe Connect, Skype, or Yahoo Messenger) to discuss the scope and concepts of the project. Get the detailed requirements of the client and information about the business or product to be able to develop the content, design and goal of the project.

You can also ask for the client’s sample of favorite work that you can use as model for your new project. For your part, you can show the portfolio of your projects and request the client which designs he would like to pattern his project. Then, you can discuss the color schemes, type of images, animations and target audience of the project. You should also discuss the pricing, specifications and the delivery date of the project.

Researching Successful business have strong research base. Before jumping right into graphic design process, save yourself time and energy by researching about:

- the client’s business and/or products, - fresh ideas, - latest trends, - innovations, - suitable images and - competitors of the client’s business or products.

Conceptualizing Conceptualizing in graphic design process is an approach of putting ideas and information you have gathered and researched into graphical or illustrated forms. You will creatively organize and translate these ideas into graphics and pictures so that a new design about the business or product is developed.

Once the concept of the project is agreed upon by you and the client, you can now start to translate the concepts into a hardcopy.

Layout & Design You can save so much time and energy by starting with simple layout or quick sketches of logo concepts, line drawings showing where elements will be placed on the page or even a quick handmade version of a package design. Then present the concepts to your client and ask for any changes. For web design, wireframes are a great way to start with your page layouts.

It’s always a good idea to present your client with at least two or more versions of design. This gives the client some options and allows you to combine their favorite elements from each. You can encourage your client to do “mixing and matching” of the designs you provide.

After you have both agreed on the designs, you can now proceed to implement the concepts and designs ready for presentation.

Presentation & Revising Once your proposed work is done, be able to make a formal presentation and defend why you came up with such concepts and designs. From their suggestions you can present a second round of designs. Since you’re the designer and the one in authority, don’t be afraid to give your opinion on what looks best. After this second round, it isn’t uncommon to have a couple more rounds of changes before reaching a final design.

Approval & Finalizing Once, the final design is approved you can now proceed adding the final touches of your work and getting ready for final submission.

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Graphic Designer Market Research

Bureau of Labor Statistics [http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos090.htm] 

Graphic designers—or graphic artists—plan, analyze, and create visual solutions to communications problems.

The first step in developing a new design is to determine the needs of the client, the message the design should portray, and its appeal to customers or users. Graphic designers consider cognitive, cultural, physical, and social factors in planning and executing designs for the target audience. Designers gather relevant information by meeting with clients, creative or art directors, and by performing their own research. Identifying the needs of consumers is becoming increasingly important for graphic designers as they continue to develop corporate communication strategies in addition to creating designs and layouts.

Projections Data

Employment, 2008   Projected Employment, 2018 

286,100                     323,100         

Change 08-18                                    Number          Percent

36,900            13%

How Graphic Designers Can Inspire Global Culture