if you want to take the r to graphic design seriously this video is going to show you
every single step you should take to end up with an effective and advanced design solution now
I know many people learn things from YouTube and other designers like myself but then when
you go to your own work your own projects you kind of feel lost well that's where this video
is going to help you step by step in a kind of easy to follow process so get your notepad all
your typing fingers ready so you can jot down some ideas some notes as we move through this important
design video oh yeah and actually before we kick into high gear in today's video a quick thank you
and a shout out to invoice Ninja for sponsoring today's video okay so the first thing we've got
to do is to define the objective and the audience of our design now I'm going to be designing a soap
package design later in the video so you can see how this process actually works in real time on a
real design but yeah first we should establish the audience and the objective of the design so let's
say we're working on the packaging on branding for an organic and somewhat higher end soap product
but how can we determine the objectives of the projects that we've actually been given
well we need to refer to the brief and the initial client information of course and I
could extrapolate that the objective is to make the packaging of the soap appear high-end clean
and delicate whilst adhering to the organic and natural themes of that kind of brand our audience
are females who can afford to spend above average for some soap and who sometimes like to pamper
and indulge themselves while they still feel like they're helping the environment now soap and Brand
Packaging likely shouldn't be that sort of generic and cheap looking soap but also I don't want to
make a design that is overflowing with opulence and lavish motifs I want to position it somewhere
in the middle but in a kind of upper middle end if that makes sense and of course you should
go into more detail on your target audience and the industry but it does come down to something
important and that is how much you're getting paid and how much time you wish to spend on a project
it's all relative of course to your situation but you should aim to understand the audience and the
objective of the design so we've established the main audience and the main objective of the design
this is when you need to conduct some good old research again depending on how much you've
been paid and how intricate you want your design process to be with determine how long you spend
on the research phase and I'm not going to talk too long about this but here are some key points
to take away or to keep in mind the brief is the starting point of course and from there you can
look into competitors of your clients and look at the industry standard you might go against
the industry standard to well stand out or comply with it to fit in now I always point out Snapchat
and how they could easily have gone for blue with their brand because it falls in line with
the standard for social media Brands but they went against the grain and they opted for a bright and
a bold yellow logo and brand which literally does stand out now you might want to look deeper into
your audience compile mood boards make sketches even conduct surveys or browse existing surveys
on people relevant to that brand again for the soap packaging that we're soon going to design I
want to gather all sorts of information about the audience and the industry what materials are used
in making the soap and the packaging what feels good in terms of the packaging texture and so
on and again this just comes back to knowing your clients industry and the audience and
everything involved with that most people would jump straight into the concept creation phase at
this point but I have a different route that does make sense at this stage I like to nail down my
color palette choices my shape psychology choices and typeface selection working on the soap brand
packaging I'd now return to the keywords from the objective and the research to make some really
clear decisive choices those words are high-end clean and delicate and a pro tip here is to get
your objective down to one concise sentence or phrase for that matter because you can actually
come back to at any point in design process and you can make things really easy if you do this
all of your design choices should relate back to this sentence also my research I've established
that my target audience are female and they likely adhere to high-end products or at least don't mess
around with cheap and cheerful products with that in mind I want to go for a low saturation in my
color choice and that's so the design seems soft and delicate I also think an off-white
or kind of faded white would be a good idea to throw into the mix and that's to represent the
clean side of the brief let's also run with purple because it's regal it's feminine and it is quite
prestigious but remember I want to go for a low saturation or something like this as that would
work really well that's my color scheme decided in correspondence to my research and the brief
shape psychology is also going to be pretty easy when considering a feminine product that is meant
to be organic what kind of shapes or shape psychology ideas do you have or what comes
to mind I'm going to make use of a circular shape in some way on my design and that's to continue
the feminine design narrative and I think making use of Flora motifs will link back to that organic
aspect that I want to get across also maybe including horizontal lines would be a great
way to express relaxation and peace something that people who pamper themselves might appreciate and
lastly for this section my typography choices now for luxury you'd expect maybe a serif type
a solution however I'm going to run with a Sans serif and I don't want the design to look overly
serious or just too luxurious I've elected a thin and Sans serif which would communicate luxury and
sophistication more than a bold thicker Sans serif learning about typeface psychology is absolutely
essential to being an Optimum and advanced graphic designer and if you don't know that already
you should be studying it so you're familiar with it in and out basically it's just how typefaces
Express certain emotions at this point you can also consider imagery and textures but again
it comes down to how much you've been paid and how long you want to spend on a project
now on my design I don't want any imagery apart from the organic line drawing patterns of the
leaves and that's because I think the design should be somewhat minimal to convey that clean
narrative now the texture elements will heavily come down to the materials chosen when printing
the design and that choice would be important to convey the extra layer of luxury and sensation
because soap is a very sensual kind of product I'd opt for something organic and recyclable
but something that feels tactile and not cheap to the touch again every choice we make should
be linked back to the objective and the target audience and this is a quick and
a simple demonstration of that so when you've got your design to a point where you think it's ready
to print or to send to the client stop stop right there because don't send it just yet depending on
how much time you have here are some Pro tips that you should keep in mind before printing or sending
anything to your client firstly of course spell check every single thing on your design and also
just look for errors in general if you're working on a print project print that puppy out and test
to see how it looks in real life in your hands and on different kinds of paper now you might want to
mock up your design in real life situations just to see how it functions and so for the
soap design maybe it'd be wise to see how it looks in a store you know on a shelf against other soap
products also think about showing your design to other people whose opinion you do value this
entire section at the end here aims to weed out any weakness on your design and also put things
into perspective for your design if your design survives this phase then it's on to the next phase
which is a presentation and that's a whole other process in of itself but importantly think about
this what have we just done here in today's video well we've gotten to know the main objectives of
the brief and the clients projects we've gotten to know Their audience then we've gone on and made a
visual language and narrative based around that the design ultimately is then really targeted at
a group of people and it has a lot more chance of being successful and effective in the long
run invoice ninja is an open source platform focusing on freelance invoicing payments and
productivity when a designer starts to make real money in their career yeah the last thing they
want to be doing is just spending a whole bunch of time on paperwork invoicing all the back end stuff
invoice ninja makes everything faster and more simple for you and for me and it has things like
time tracking and project management features so you can remain laser focused on a project
it has banking Integrations and even inventory and vendor tracking the invoice templates really
do rock as well and they'll make you look really professional when you shoot over
your next invoice to a client and there are a whole bunch of invoice templates that you
can scroll over browse and then use on your projects but yeah be sure to check
out invoice ninja down in the description box below and see how it can help your career today
but if you'd like to learn something in terms of advanced psychology and graphic design just
click that video on screen but until next time guys design your future today peace
peace