How to Think Like A Graphic Designer

Recently, I finished the interface design of a mobile app we are building with a team consist of İÜ-CBK members. It was my first experience with Adobe XD and the UI/UX design overall. After, proudly, taking the complements of my team, they started to complain about how they can’t design anything and their brains can only imagine a simple terminal while writing the code. I didn’t have prior experience with interface design. I used to draw digital art and have been designing some social media posts, posters and stands for various organizations and all I did was transferring the skills I gained from those experiences to the mobile app world (stay tuned for our projects 😊). After making lots of retouches on our project, had long discussions with our development team and the other project groups I was giving advice on design and listening to their grievance how “designing is not a skill they can learn afterwards” I decided to write a little guide how they should be thinking while trying to design some UI/UX or at least talking to a designer LOL.

Before the Process:

There are two fundamental questions you should ask yourself before all the journey begins.

1- What do I want to represent to the user with my product?

2- Whom I want to present my product to?

These two comprehensive questions will give you a strong back-bone if you bother answering them in detail. You can interrelate the product and the user and decide pretty much what to do in general. Let me give you an example, if you want to make an interface for a mobile app for children, you must list the key functionalities of your service and the key tendencies of your audience, children in this case. Then you should ask another question to yourself, I know that’s too many questions but what are we if we don’t question our surroundings, “how can I link these two lists together using symbols, colors and images?”.

Usually, until this part of the progression I see a paper full of ideas in front of me which are the outcome of me trying to answer those sacred questions. After some quick sketches, I go grab my most powerful skill from my bag which I am going to use it along the journey and that is CONSULTING. This brings us another important thing a designer should consider; getting involved in community.

Whether you are working with developers, this is a group that I love working with because I simply I can interact them without shuffling books in order to understand their needs, merchants, doctors, etc. you should ask them questions in order to enhance the design you are working on and boy-oh-boy this is not a onetime task. You should keep in touch with them along the way.

The second group of people you should consult are designers just like you. Well, maybe more experienced ones could give you a boost but asking your peers and examining different perspectives will always be helpful to you. So, I am telling you that, since we can reach-out to tons of remarkable people via the internet, build your little tribe of designers. You can also come and ask me for a helping hand if you want to. It would be a pleasure for me.

Let the Design Begin:

Okay, you have your so-called backbone and ready to knock the hell out of that highbrow designer that always finds a way not to fulfill your wishes. I won’t tell you the best tools for designers or how to use them. I am here to teach you how to fish.

Read:

People get a little confused when I tell them something like “Oh man I spent last night reading articles for that panel I have been working on”. Another thing that annoys us is that the general misconception that the knowledge and inspiration come from the skies to us one day and we do our work. That’s not true. You must read about lots of things. I’ll list some of them below to give you an idea. These readings will give you a good sense of how a graphic designer thinks.

• Fundamentals of design
• The technical details about the product or the service you’re presenting
• Other user’s experience about that cool tool you’re planning to use
• Documentation and tutorials about the current tool you’re working with
• Articles about your context such as smartphones, Instagram feed, etc.
• Latest trends on the chosen field’s design work

Observe:

We are standing on the shoulders of giants and this is no different for us, designers. After reading about how you should design the product, it is crucial to look at how other people did the work. There are plenty of platforms you can observe great designers’ work from such as; Pinterest, Dribbble and Behance. Never forget that you cannot copy others’ work without their permission but there is no rule which keeps you out getting inspiration from them.

Create:

You did all that browsing and ready to create!! You already choose what to use in your work but you should arrange them according to your scale of significance. This process impacts the layout, colors, animations, etc. Basically, you should plan where do you want your audience to look at most and direct their gaze around the product. Since it is not a tutorial or technical explanation, I won’t mention details here, but I may list some crucial things you should consider pondering upon while doing your work.

- Layout

This is strongly related to your audience. You should take your product’s users’ habits, tendencies and facilities. For example, if you’re designing a mobile app for children in portrait mode, you should put most of the buttons in the lower parts of the canvas since they have cute tiny fingers and won’t bother stretching for buttons on the upper sides of the phone.

- Color Theory

This is essential for graphic designers and there are plenty of well-prepared resources out there but I can say that color is one of your biggest tools to emphasize components on your canvas.

- Typography

If you are trying to be a graphic designer, presumably you are going to deal with lots of texts. You should tell the audience what you want to say using succinct sentences because you’re not writing an article to convey your message, you are giving people something to look at. Also, besides the word choice, you should be careful about picking the font style and size. They are also crucial parts of directing the audience and emphasize the component’s importance.

Final Phase:

Once you finish your work, you should get ready for a retouch marathon. You should ask other designers’ views on your product, make a “beta test” on your target audience or take reviews from random strangers on the street. You might want to make little changes on your work or completely change the design relying on the reviews and suggestions following the same pathway.

Your main behavior towards these various suggestions should be positive and embracing but don’t forget that you can’t please everyone’s wishes and aesthetic demands. Sometimes following your gut feeling can result successfully, too.

So that’s all what I want to say in this post, for now. I am happy that you made it till the end. Let me know if you want to add something or have any other suggestions about the post.