Project Research for Graphic Designers
Studioblr Collective | October 8th
About to embark on your next Graphic Design project? Well, first things first, make sure you do research! When you do, you should consider the following:
Gathering inspiration is not only a good way to get inspired, but also to make sure you aren’t inadvertently doing something that’s already been done! Check out official archives to find designs that are agreed to be exceptional and a general google search helps shows a lot of bad or obvious ideas that you should avoid.
Example: You’re doing a pet care logo. Go ahead and tell me when you’re done counting how many logos there are of cats and dogs mixed with the + symbol (or just silhouettes of the animals). I’m not saying you can’t go this route, but if you do go in a popular direction be warned that your logos may be too similar to established ones. In some circumstances this could be considered plagiarism. This leads to possible legal troubles, but also a generic and boring design.
Some archives to look through include:
You can also look at portfolio sites of famous firms such as Pentagram and Sagmeister and Walsh.
It’s important to know what you’re trying to communicate. If you’re making a political advocacy poster, for example, then you should do plenty of research about the social issue you’re designing for. The last thing you want to do is make a beautiful design that does not portray what you want it to say, or even becomes borderline offensive.
On a more mild end of the spectrum, let’s say you’re making collateral for a restaurant. What kind of food does the restaurant serve? What’s their message or slogan that they go by? What’s the atmosphere? The answers to these questions will help guide what you should include in your design, what information you’ll be organizing, and how to layout or emphasize key parts of the information that you found.
This goes hand in hand with your subject matter. Concept, in this case, is really figuring out the message, tone, and connotation.
Designers should consider their messages from their designs not only out of politeness, but also so it functions effectively in the desired culture is not considered confusing, offensive, inappropriate, or embarrassing.
To continue the restaurant idea, if you go with more greens and browns, the restaurant will read as one that prides themselves in using organic or local foods. If it’s upscale and fancy, a gold emboss on the business cards, a script, or even a nice serif typeface would look nice on the menu. It’s also good to write down keywords that you’re aiming for and referring to those when you start sketching.
These three categories are really general guidelines for setting up what you should include in your preliminary stages of design. Your next step, after gathering all of your research, would be to start ideating, which you can read about in my other article HERE (which also helps if you’re just in a bit of a creative bind).
I hope this was helpful, and if you have any specific questions about anything feel free to ask the @studioblrcollective!
Written by @allydsgn
Edited by @rikstudies
Designed by @allydsgn
