Stop reversing the design process

If you are designing in reverse, please stop. Design is not making things look nice. That is meaningless. Design is a form of emotional communication. It must be informed by the content it represents. You don’t smile when you’re angry… it’s freaky. And you don’t design without content… it’s scary.

When I started designing websites I did it like every newbie, without content. I was a moron. How could I ever create something meaningful without context?

Now, I know when you’re new it’s hard to get clients to give you anything, content or cash. But, they don’t know what design is, and they don’t know that they need it. It’s not their job, it yours, and you need to inform them.

Doing design right

As I learned, design was not about picking up a brush and hoping something nice came out (This is what most new website owners assume). It was about understanding, communication and art.

I had the process all wrong:

1. design a site
2. plug in content
3. and market the content

Instead the process is quite the opposite:

1. understand the market
2. develop content based on that information
3. and let the content inform the design.

Market awareness

Marketing is the first step to design. For a writer, marketing is a story. For us, it’s the story of those we are working with. But we can only begin to write once we understand their story.

Content

Every story has characters. Who are the characters of the brand you are working with? What is their history? What is their personality? What do they do for fun? Are they goofy or proper?

Writing is hard if you don’t know these things. In the end writing is about bringing an idea to life. It’s about painting a picture in the mind’s eye; and it’s our job to communicate what that painting is emotionally.

Design

Communication is emotional. It is where most relationships break down too. If a design is not communicating correctly, how can the design stand? Well, it doesn’t. It never will. It’s like a person who smiles on the outside and wages war within. Bad design is like a volcano waiting to erupt without warning, and volcanoes erupt.

Design is informed by content. If it’s not, it’s not communicating.

What is your story?

So, what is the story you need to communicate? Have the characters already been given to you? Or, will you pretend that you can design the cover of a book without pages?