The design process: from brief to prototype

1Designers don't start on the good card

A professional designer never begins by drawing on expensive card. They start with questions, then many small sketches, then a cheap test version. This design process saves materials and money, and it leads to better ideas, because the first idea is rarely the best one.

2The steps of the design process

1. Brief: a short written description of the job. It states who the client and the audience are, the purpose or occasion, the exact message, the size and form, the materials and budget, and the deadline. If nobody gives you a brief, ask questions and write one yourself.
2. Research: look at real cards, collect motifs (such as the patterns from the last unit), lettering you like and colour ideas, and note what works and why.
3. Thumbnails: three to six tiny, quick sketches, about 4 cm × 6 cm, each showing a different layout. Do not fall in love with the first one.
4. Rough: the best thumbnail developed at full size in pencil, with guidelines for the lettering and colour tests at the side.
5. Prototype (mock-up): a full-size model made from scrap paper, cut and folded exactly like the final card, with the words roughly written in. It tests what a flat drawing cannot: does the card open the right way? Is anything upside down? Does the message fit? Does it fit the envelope? Does the pop-up work?
6. Feedback: show the prototype to the client and to a friend and ask specific questions. What do you see first? Can you read every word? Is anything spelt wrong?
7. Revise: improve the rough and, if needed, make another prototype.
8. Final card and evaluation: make it with good materials and your best craftsmanship (next lesson), then check it against the brief.

Worked example: Keza's Teachers' Day card

The brief. Client: Keza's class. Audience: their class teacher, Mr Habimana. Purpose: to thank him on World Teachers' Day, 5 October. Message on the front: "Murakoze, mwarimu!" (Thank you, teacher!); inside, a short note signed by the class. Form: a single-fold A6 card. Materials: manila card, a potato-stamp border, coloured pencils.

The budget. The class decides to make a card for each of their 14 teachers. One A4 sheet of card cuts into two A5 pieces, and each A5 piece folds into one A6 card, so 14 cards need 14 ÷ 2 = 7 sheets. If a sheet costs 150 Frw (check the price at your local stationer), the card costs 7 × 150 = 1,050 Frw.

Thumbnails. Keza draws four: the word MURAKOZE filling the front; a book and a pencil in the centre with a border of imigongo triangles; the lettering in a circle like a medal; the class's handprints. She develops the second idea into a full-size rough.

Prototype. When she folds her scrap-paper prototype, she finds that the front picture is on the wrong half of the sheet: the card opens backwards. With the sheet opened flat and the outside facing you, the front of a book-style card is the right half and the back is the left half. The mistake cost her nothing but scrap paper.

Feedback. A friend says the thin pencil letters cannot be read from a desk away, so Keza makes the letters twice as thick and darker. Now she is ready for the final card.

3Look closely

The Scottish architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928) drew this design for a New Year's card from himself and the artist Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh. It is a working drawing, not the finished card.

• Faint pencil lines and a boxed grid for the lettering show how carefully he planned the layout before any printing.
• The format is tall and narrow: the figure fills the upper part and the message fills the lower part, joined by long curving lines.
• The words "Wishing you a good New Year from Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh and Charles Rennie Mackintosh" are packed into a rectangle and broken across lines wherever the box ends, so the block of letters becomes a pattern. It is beautiful but hard to read. If you were giving feedback, what would you say?

Practice