On days when I’m not designing mockups, I’m creating paintbrushes and downloading textures and editing Kuler palettes, organizing them all in a central library, plus writing documentation, chipping away at baseline PSDs, CSS and WordPress frameworks, and generally streamlining the process.
Setting the Rules and Regulations for the design department is part of my job description. This can be a double-edged sword.
Because we’re a service industry, contracts are written explicitly and design is charged by the hour. We collaborate with clients to set concise deadlines and roadmaps. All this R&D and streamlining and wireframing makes projects more efficient and helps establish boundaries. Regardless, nothing can, or should, be planned right down to the last detail or else it becomes a straitjacket.
Part of my R&D includes organizing hundreds of bookmarks, too often of the “37 Mind-Blowing Grunge Wallpapers” or “23 Skull-Shattering CSS Frameworks” variety — Kyle Meyer touched on these kinds of articles awhile back. What I’ve found is that they, too, encourage restrictiveness. It’s nice to have readymade solutions, but they can also cause a lazy, assembly-line, just-add-water approach.
So how do you break the constraints? It’s inevitable, over time, to find yourself using a personal design “formula”. But there must be room for improvisation and a willingness to break your own rules. Anyone who’s played in a band knows that you can play songs over and over again in practice, but live onstage, you immediately want to embellish and make the songs better and more interesting. There’s no planning for that. You just do it.
In the last six months of designs, I’ve found myself deviating more and more from the agreed-upon wireframes and sketches. I’ve attempted mind-mapping, stared at Flickr’s “interesting” tags, sifted through Ads of the World and Veer Wallpapers and CoolHunter archives and generally tried to find inspiration elsewere, as Anthony Zinni mentioned:
Usually by observing great design outside the medium I am focusing on I am able to apply design principles that are not like current trends and are still appealing. This also often helps take my mind off of the project, which is usually when I am able to find a great solution.
I’ve become comfortable knowing that 50% of the decisions will be made at the drawing board and the other 50% made in-the-moment. It’s nice to exercise the right-half of the brain more often anyway, as it gets easily forgotten in a technical, time-sensitive industry.
The feedback I’ve been hearing more often lately is:
Wait, that’s not exactly what we outlined in the contract – but I like it better.
Improvising more often has kept me from steering into ruts and giving clients rote, half-hearted designs. Richard Rutter said it nicely:
Just as with Colly at Erskine, so we at Clearleft have a pre-defined process. User-centred design demands it, and potential clients like to see a process before hiring their agency. But what we’re starting to enjoy more and more is deviating from the process to achieve the same goal. Skipping steps, changing the order, adding extra steps, using different tools. This all keeps us fresh, but it also helps eliminate the production line approach it’s so easy to fall into.
12:23 am
On the money. Great article Darren. I’ve actually found myself doing the same thing, by clickin on the latest 70+ super badazz ultra magical PS brushes, and unicorn powered wordpress themes.
And it’s gettin old. How fast they come in and go out.
Welp. Its good to get a refresher on the subject.
12:25 am
I laughed out loud at that one ;)
5:23 am
Nice…I tend to agree, sometimes its better to just let go and see where the design takes you. We often compartmentalize ourselves and in so doing stifle some of our creativity. Nice post Darren :)
8:37 am
I found this article inspirational. These really are times of the build-it, sell-it, ship-it-out so we can move on to the next job kind of times. Thanks for challenging us to slow it down.
12:48 pm
Exactly. And I think the just-get-it-done approach is what clients think they want sometimes, but as I’ve been learning, in the end they actually do appreciate a bit of spontaneity.
I typically tell them: “I’m going to take the materials and wireframes we discussed and run a bit further with them”, improvise a bit, see what I come up with. But I also make it clear that I’m not simply “dabbling” with their project or ignoring their time/money constraints. It’s a slippery slope.
5:21 pm
I feel ashamed creating just like that kind of articles, but I calm myself, because I actually create those lists for myself.
I am glad passing by this article, found inspiring it too!
11:08 pm
I feel ashamed creating just like that kind of articles
I definitely don’t think anyone should feel shame about posting lists and links – they are extremely valuable to many people and a great learning tool. I only begin turning away from them when the sheer quantity overwhelms the quality.
10:22 am
Darren,
Thanks for the quote, it is always such a huge ego boost to read yourself being quoted ;)
I just wanted to comment that having a process is a helpful thing, especially for selling but they also need to be flexible. I choose to make my process more focused on research and gaining an understanding of the company. From that point on the client only really needs to be concerned with the reasoning behind the design and how it meets the goals established by the research. I find that creating a process in this manner still affords you the creativity necessary to make improvisational decisions.
As far as wireframes go, I put a huge violator on them that states the final site concept may look nothing like them and that they are being done to determine functionality and nail down final requirements only. This practice ensures that in the aesthetic stage you can make decisions that will ultimately improve the overall project.
Great article and keep up the good work! I could talk about this stuff all day long…
12:22 pm
@Zinni: thanks for checking in, I enjoy your blog. Good points about making it clear to clients ahead of time. That’s actually an angle I meant to include: how to explain that some improvisation/deviating will be happening without clients thinking you’re disorganized or simply winging it. Luckily, I think most clients are simply glad something has exceeded their expectations and thus aren’t too concerned with the process.
5:22 am
Artistic license is what you guys have, to us less artistic folks one must stick to the well trod path.
3:58 pm
I guess as long as the client eventually accepts (and even better likes the work), there is no risk is getting (too) creative. It is far more difficult to deal with clients who believes the default theme in WordPress actually looks good!
12:15 pm
I am seaching for some idea to write in my blog… somehow come to your blog. best of luck. Eugene
2:08 pm
Interesting post. Thanks!
5:22 am
Yeah, this is very interesting. Improvising is important part of designers life. =)
6:27 pm
yes, creative freedom is a must!
6:28 pm
I agree that it is important to not set those boundaries ahead of time, otherwise you will lose your enthusiasm!