The blank page.
Few things are more intimidating in a project than staring at a blank page and hoping for inspiration to strike. But what if we stopped looking at the blank page as something to be intimidated by and started viewing it as an opportunity?
That’s exactly what a blank page is. It’s a chance to tell a story. It’s an opportunity to communicate what’s important to us.
In this blog post, I’ll be sharing my process and how I approach the blank page when it comes to brand related projects for my clients. Along the way, I’ll share some tips that can be applied regardless of the type of project you’re working on.
The Process
For the purposes of this post, I’ll explain my process when it comes to one aspect of a brand – logo design.
So where do I start?
Understanding the Client
The most important thing I can do as a designer is understand the mind of my client. It’s important for me to understand items such as:
- What are they passionate about?
- What message do they want to convey to their audience?
- What brands do they admire and why?
- What is their competitive advantage?
- Who is their target audience?
- What feeling do they want their brand to convey?
In this stage, my goal is simply to gather information and understand how my client thinks. This is accomplished through a phone call as well as a detailed questionnaire I have my clients fill out.
With this foundation in place, it’s time to move on to the next stage…
Brainstorming
Based on the information I gleaned in the previous stage, I write down all kinds of ideas that come to mind. It can be words, sentences, colors, feelings, symbols – anything I feel could represent my client well and communicate their unique story.
At this stage, I’m not evaluating ideas. I’m just putting anything and everything down on a page.
Two things are critical in this stage.
- Putting something down on paper.
- Refraining from critiquing those ideas at this point.
I can’t stress enough how important these two things are. It’s easy to become completely paralyzed by that blank page. So, if we can get over that hurdle by putting something down on paper, we break through that barrier. It doesn’t have to be good. It doesn’t have to be brilliant.
It’s a starting place which can pave the way to the good ideas.
The other thing that can kill creativity in an instant is critiquing your ideas in the brainstorming phase. This is tempting to do, but don’t give in to that tendency. In the brainstorming phase, you are simply putting ideas down, whether good or bad. There’s always time to evaluate your ideas later.
Once that process is complete, I move on to the next stage…
Sketching
The hardest part is over. The intimidation of that blank page has already largely been overcome, because I have ideas down on paper. Now it’s time to evaluate what I have written down, choose the strongest options, and begin sketching out ideas. This is the exploratory phase.
For this stage, I use the software Procreate on my iPad and sketch out a bunch of rough ideas. It doesn’t have to be pretty at this point – in fact, it’s not supposed to be. Again, it’s a starting place. In this phase, I’m learning what works, what doesn’t, and challenging each of the concepts I come up with, asking myself questions such as:
- How can I make this concept even better? How can I take this design to the next level, but also keep it simple?
- What if I tried XYZ?
- What would happen if I moved this element here?
- What if I played with negative space?
I try new things, toss out what doesn’t work, and further develop the concepts that show promise. With this in place, I move on to the final stage…
Developing
At this point, I have a pretty good idea of which logo concepts are strongest (and are therefore the ones I want to develop). I’ll pick the strongest 2-3 concepts, develop them in Adobe Illustrator, and show them to my client for their feedback.
I then take whichever logo concept they like best, refine it, and finalize it.
Project complete.
Wrap Up
To recap, the blank page isn’t something we need to fear. It’s an opportunity. Regardless of what you’re working on, the following tips apply across the board when it comes to conquering that blank page:
- Put something down on paper (even if it’s not a fantastic idea). The goal is to get the ideas flowing so you can get to those brilliant ideas.
- Don’t critique your ideas in the middle of the brainstorming process.
- Take your strongest ideas and challenge them. Have fun exploring and see where it leads you.