- Fact.
Your first idea is not always your best.
Sometimes it can be, on a rare occasion,
but I would argue that the majority of the time, it isn't.
In this video, I want to talk to you about iteration
and why it's so important in the design process.
I'm gonna demonstrate it through an example
of a terrible first idea of my own.
♪ What I do ♪
♪ Is adore you all of the time ♪
- A while ago, I made a video about designing a landing page
in Sketch, and in that video,
I was just walking through one page,
basically showing the tools that I was using
and kind of my workflow for laying out a page in Sketch.
But I got so many questions on that video
from people asking me why I bothered to design it
and why I didn't just go straight into coding it.
And the answer to that is iteration.
In my experience, the first draft I do of a landing page
is never the best version.
There was always ways that I can improve it
and to better solve the problem and get the message across.
Understandably, I didn't show that in this video.
It was just showing me laying out one page,
so it's fair enough that people asked,
but I wanted to make this video and show you
an iteration process that I went through recently
in designing a graphic to advertise some Evergreen webinars
that we're producing at ConvertKit.
Are you ready for it?
All right.
This was my first idea.
It's not bad.
The background is the same
that we have in our presentation template,
so it's something that will then be familiar to them
in the webinar, this red with the pattern in the corner.
But overall, all of these pieces
just don't feel like they're unified.
It all feels a little bit bitsy.
There's not enough negative space or contrast.
And so with my next idea,
I thought I'd try a light background
because that would allow me to play with color
a little bit more where the red was a bit limiting.
I tried it all centered, so it is looking more unified,
but also there was just too much stuff
and the logo we had to go left-aligned,
which is kind of weird.
For the next run, I tried it without the Register Now,
which looked a lot cleaner, but that's the call to action
and it was kind of important, so I needed to include it.
So going back to the one that had all the pieces in it,
I realized that my main problem with this was that
everything was kind of too even weight in hierarchy.
I needed to create some more contrast somehow.
So I decided to do this by making a feature
out of this lovely photo of Isa, my wonderful workmate,
who is our webinar producer
and she hosts these Evergreen webinars.
I chose to make her photo the main image
rather than the illustration or something more graphical
because I know from past research
that people connect really well with other people.
It just puts a more personal touch to it.
So this is getting better,
but it still feels a bit disjointed,
having the HOSTED BY Isa Adney on the side there
away from everything else.
So next I tried bringing that in
and using this little hand-drawn arrow element
to link to it, which I thought was pretty cool.
Then I tried it with a logo on top of the photo
just to free up some space there by the text.
I didn't like that, so I tried it back
on the right-hand side, but a lot smaller.
This was getting close
but something was still feeling off to me
and I wanted to really push this graphic
a little bit further,
and I realized it was this straight edge on the photo
that was bothering me.
In the right-hand corner, we've got this beautiful,
like swoopy illustration.
The hard edges of the photo
weren't really fitting in well with that.
So the next thing I tried was marking it
with a nice swoopy line to make those fit together better.
I tried out a different illustration at the side,
but things were just feeling too busy with this.
I needed to try and simplify the graphic a bit.
I took away the illustration and put the logo there instead.
Didn't like that.
Thought I'd have a long logo underneath instead,
and that was better, but the thing wrong with this graphic
was the center point, the point where you eye goes.
It felt a little bit off having the photo at the side
and then also the text kind of at the side.
Like almost, if the graphic had weight,
then it would be doing this.
So I needed to make some more balance
and move the photo over to the right-hand side
and that meant that the text could align
with the left-hand side of the graphic.
A much more balanced feeling.
This Hosted by was feeling a bit odd though.
The arrangement here was just a bit weird.
So I felt that for the sake of balance
I should drop the arrow and put the Hosted by
in line with the title.
Then the last change I made was to revisit the shapes
that I had around Isa's photo.
I tried some of those colors
back when I had the illustration at the side.
So now we were kind of missing our main brand color
from this piece.
Like there wasn't the main color that was standing out.
So I swapped around the colors a bit.
And this is the final graphic.
So we went from this to this, all through iteration.
Now like I said, that first graphic was not terrible.
I don't think it was great but it would have done the job.
But going through this process of iteration,
critiquing my own work, trying things out,
I reached this point where we've got a graphic
that I feel is much more beautiful,
much more pleasing to the eye,
and also much easier for someone to read.
So I really want to encourage you to push yourself
and move past your first idea.
I hope this video showed you why iteration was so important
and gave you some insights into the little things
that I look out for and how I decide to iterate my work.
If you enjoyed this video, if you found it useful,
then what I'd like you to do,
instead of giving it a thumbs-up,
although you can do that as well,
but what I would really like
is for you to share it with a friend.
Share it with someone who you think would benefit
from watching this.
I would love to hear in the comments
if your design process is something similar to this.
Do you end up duplicating a lot of art-boards like I do?
Let me know down below in the comments.
If you're new to my channel, then please hit the Subscribe.
I make new videos about design every single week
and I'd love to have you back here for the next one.
All right.
I hope you have a good day.
Go do good work, and I'll see you next time.
(funky music)
♪ I like this ♪