The meat and Potatoes.
Researching
The first step I do to beginning any project is research. Not just a quick glance on Google, but a thorough and complete coverage of the topic.
Organize
Next is organization, I make it a habit of spending a full day upfront organizing projects. This is helps me with my work flow a lot later on. I don’t often do this step alone, it’s important to me to get the client’s idea for the organization of their site.
Draw
After organizing the content, the graphic designer in me gets to have a little fun! If the client hasn’t already provided designs, this is the point where I will start visualizing concepts. This can also be considered part of organization, but I think of it as a different category of organization.
Edit
Once that is done, I go through and make edits. I find that some times things come up in the visualization process that may collide with the previous steps. Therefore small edits must be made to fill the holes.
Prototype
By this point I have a pretty solid idea and concept of what I am after, so I start to prototype those ideas. For digital or dimensional print projects this is basically building a rough working model of my ideas. This process will reveal the realistic-ness of the design.
Adjust
Once again, things will often come up in the prototyping process. For example, sometimes I will create a design that I think is very aesthetically pleasing, but once it comes time to code that design, or make a dimensional print design, there may be some adjustments that have to be made. The prototyping and adjusting process can often be a part of an iteration loop.
Execute
This can be the most rewarding part of the process to see a clean and working design that requires only minor tweaks. This is the point, if I am doing a website where I clean up the code and re-visit performance and optimization. Even though I’ll do that throughout the process, it’s good to go through in one go for consistency.
Deploy
This is the launch of the final product and it is a lot of fun for me and my clients!
