Design Process Reflection

Well after 3 weeks of work, the business card and letterhead design project is coming to a close.  I can now say that I’ve completed a Photoshop and InDesign project as well as an organization’s new logo.  It feels like forever since I started this project and there was a lot of obstacles and frustration along the way, but I made it.

This post will reflect on the entire design process from conception, to editing and then finalizing my business card and letterhead.  Just for a refresher my company was Oklahoma Watch, a nonprofit investigative journalism organization.

I felt that since I currently working for Oklahoma Watch I really should give it my all to make the designs something they would be proud to represent.  Our first task for this project was to research the organization we chose and analyze their competitors.  I mainly found that what makes Oklahoma Watch different from other news outlets is that their staff only produces stories or events that are impactful on residents of Oklahoma.  Oklahoma Watch should be considered a more trustworthy source than its competitors.  The main goal of my design initially was to convey a trustworthy organization.

Looking back on my first draft I’m a little horrified.  There are just several key design rules that I completely missed and I’m glad that I have progressed past this first draft.  That color blue is so murky and does not capture the eye as a lighter blue does.  The logo is entirely too stretched out and the business card does not have the text going the same way on both sides.  However, even though my first draft now frightens me a bit.  I’m glad to have progressed past this design.  Everyone starts somewhere.

After getting a lot of helpful feedback from my classmates after that initial design, I did double duty working on the second draft of my business card and the first draft of my letterhead.  The biggest addition I made this week in my business card was finally figuring out a way to make the logo look more like a magnifying glass!  It was easy too.  I went into Photoshop and pasted a black rectangle that filled in the gap.  Also, I decided to make all of the text vertical and have the blue be a lighter shade.

As for my letterhead I had an easier time designing this because I was inspired by this post on my Pinterest board.  I really liked the simple design, but felt that having the logo faded into the bottom helped show that Oklahoma Watch is a serious organization.  In my edits I only changed a few things after this first draft and most of which were simply cleaning up the look of it.

 And now this brings us to my final drafts for each of my assignments.  Looking back, I would not have gotten very far if not for my peers and my instructor.  I would get so overwhelmed with the designs programs and constantly mess things up but I somehow got everything to work.  My business card went through a complete metamorphosis while my letterhead was mainly just cleaned up.

In the end for my business card, I felt that a white background would help the colors pop.  I turned everything horizontal and I finally added Oklahoma Watch’s tag line.  I put the blue strip on the front as well as made some of the text blue to make it eye-catching.  I decided to make the back of the card really clean with just the tag line.  Now while looking back at my other designs, I feel that this design is superior to the rest.

The main changes to my letterhead include making the logo in the bottom right more faded, so that anyone can read text that proceeds over it.  I removed the blue strip because I felt that it didn’t add anything to the design.  I moved the black line under the logo instead of below the email information.  And I just made everything fit into alignment with the rest of the page.  I’m pretty proud of this and plan on sharing it with the people who work at Oklahoma Watch.

In further reflection, I will post my answers to the questions that my instructor provided me with for this post.

What were you asked to do?  Make our last round of edits on our business card and letterhead drafts.  Also, give a short pitch to the class about how we came up with our final design.

How did you respond to what you were asked to do?  Well the work time we got in class really helped get the last round of edits done.  Everyone in the class offered constructive criticism or helped you figure out how to push your design to the next level.  I feel like this time it was a more collaborative effort that was featured in the final designs.

How did you react to what you actually did?  I was pleasantly surprised! The final drafts turned out better than I imagined they would.  I think in the end I stopped trying to create what I initially imagined, but I just tried to enhance what I already had in front of me.

Now go one level deeper: Why do you think your reaction was what it was?  I think I was surprised because I was really just improvising throughout this entire design process.  I had never used Photoshop or InDesign before and I definitely had some negative thoughts about how it would turn out.  However, I now feel that I was probably best to not have every tiny detail of my design planned out ahead of time.  This really allowed me to be creative at every stage of the process and I think that’s why my final business card design turned out completely different than the first draft.

Any long term goals for this design?  Do you have any interest in actually pitching this to your organization?  Yes I will actually be emailing them the examples later today.

Do you or do you not feel yourself becoming more confident with the tools you are being  asked to use?  I wouldn’t say that I’m “confident” in my ability to use the tools but I am getting more experience!  Maybe at the end of the semester I’ll be able to say I’m confident in my ability to use the design tools.

Is there anything you would do differently if you were to start over?  I probably wouldn’t be so adamant about keeping the blue background, which I did for two weeks.  But in the end I’m glad I did it the way I did because I now without a doubt feel that the white background fits the design better.

Do you have any recommendations for future students doing this project?  Try everything!  Definitely try to experiment as much as you can and then clean up your design with A LOT of attention to detail.

You made it to the end of my very long, very articulate post.  Kudos to you.