The Design Process In this activity you will learn some of the design principles used in business and industry to create and produce a marketable product. Utilizing design and fabrication processes practiced by the graphics industry, you will layout and generate a variety of projects. This activity will provide you with an understanding of the importance of Design and Technology in business by looking at the Graphics Industry and carrying out research for creating a great design. Take a look at graphic designs around you. Collect a few examples and compare them. Can you figure out what the message in the design is trying to communicate? During this activity you will investigate factors that influence how an advertisement project is planned and produced.

What do designers do? The designer tries to find answers to practical problems that are created by real needs. The designer analyzes problems and creates solutions to problems. Designers create or improve systems, environments, or products. Design teams use the information provided by research to make a new or better product. Designing and engineering are development processes. The Research and Design teams work closely together while a new product is being developed. New questions and problems may arise and more research may be needed to answer these questions.

Design Teams The design team must have an exact idea of the customer's goal before beginning to design the printed material that will accomplish that goal. Creating a layout in computer graphics is done with a systematic procedure called the Design Process. Let's take a look at the design process. Identify needs and opportunities Develop a Design Brief Generate a design proposal Plan and Make Evaluate Communicate and present

IDENTIFY NEEDS The design of a message is based on the following questions: Purpose, emphasis, audience, output medium, resources, time frame. The target audience and the cost are major considerations. Technical aspects relating to the communication medium must also be taken into account. When designing a graphic layout you must first investigate and ask the following questions. Purpose: What is the purpose of this? A brief summary of facts that tells you what you are hoping to accomplish. The purpose is fundamental to decisions about the format and style of the message. A different approach is taken for selecting and using visual images when the purpose is to instruct rather than to sell or to entertain. Resources: What resources are available for preparing the communication? Resources include the sources of information and the tools available for the preparing the communication. If there is existing data, drawings and photographs for an annual report, the job of producing an illustrated report will be less demanding than if none of these resources exist. How much will it cost? What type of knowledge and talent does the person preparing the graphic materials have? You must fully understand the design problem you are to solve. You must answer all the questions listed to fully investigate solutions. Design Briefs: A brief is a summary of facts that tells you what you are hoping to do. It has no needless details. It is short and concise. It will contain information on restrictions, time, materials, size and shape, and special functions. Once you identify the need you must state the problem you are trying to solve. For example: PROBLEM: Design a poster for a new CD ROM game that is going on the market. Along with this would be a list of specific criteria, which you found out by answering the questions that we discussed today.

Generate a Design Proposal This could be in the form of a sketch. You will take your thoughts and ideas and put them down on paper. Sketching is one of the oldest and most basic forms of communication. As our society became more and more complex and people began to construct and manufacture, the need for drawings increased. In our technological world, the ability to read and interpret drawings is needed in many occupations and is important to all of us. A drawing is a communication tool. It is a graphic representation or picture of an idea in the mind of the person creating the drawing. Details such as size, shape, and location relationships can be clearly described with drawings. Drawings can be used to convey simple and complex messages in a clear and precise manner. Information can be given and ideas expressed, but keep in mind that nothing is ever final. You may have to make modifications to you design once you start the next step of planning and making. A design team usually has a Technical Illustrator working closely with the project. Technical illustration blends technical and freehand drawing. The goal of the technical illustrator is to present a "picture like" drawing of the design which shows how it would appear in the real world. Many technical illustrations look like photographs rather than drawings.

PLAN AND MAKE This is where you are going to take all the ideas you have developed and make a final decision on what your final project will look like. Design layout, color, size, and other details must be decided on before your final presentation will be put together.

EVALUATE Your final product will require you to give your personal opinion of your work. Testing your solutions and finding out the opinions of others. You will also compare your ideas to other student's solutions

Communicate and Presentation Communicating your ideas is extremely important during any design project. You will produce all sorts of drawings and collect a great deal of different information. You may have a mixture of written work, drawings, photographs, patterns and much more. You need to present all this information in a clear and interesting way so that other people can understand and appreciate your thoughts, ideas, and conclusions. You should be able to explain how you decided on your design. You should also be able to explain how you set out finding information in order to help solve your problem. The design process can take a few minutes or several hours. It can be quit easy or somewhat difficult. Quite often it is not as difficult or as complex as people make it. It is important that you follow the design process step by step. Do not skip around or cut corners.