What devouring mangoes and practicing graphic design have in common: A good process makes life easier
5 MIN READ
I started out the year like I do most others, devouring a tray of mangoes while promising myself I’ll be nicer to myself and loved ones, overthink less, be more… uh, I can’t remember now.
What I can recall is that I promised myself I’d make an effort to share my graphic design knowledge. In particular, sharing more about how clients can work more efficiently with graphic designers to get better results.
Here at Minta, there’s a process for almost everything. We believe if the process for us is clear cut, then it’s easy to get things rolling and spend more time on letting the creative juices flow.
Better process = better outcomes for you as a client.
Every graphic designer has a slightly different process. I know my own has changed and evolved as I’ve changed and evolved.
As any client of mine would agree, the graphic design brief is an important piece of my process and the overall Minta experience.
(I know, I know, I’m getting back to the mangoes, promise!)
It’s okay if you don’t know everything
Until someone tells you or you spend some time learning, you don’t know what you don’t know. You know?
Now, we can get back to the mangoes… Did you know there’s a process to get the best out of them?
My incredibly talented friend and foodie extraordinaire, Emma (you might know her as @photobeforeweeat), brought this mango hack to my attention and I’ve never looked back.
Think of it this way. When presented with a mango, you probably grab a knife, slice off a cheek and then cut the flesh into a criss-cross pattern. Then it’s ready to invert and separate the chunks into bite-sized pieces. But, what if someone showed you that sliding a cup between the skin and the delicious fruit would result in more mango to enjoy, and less of the good stuff going to waste?
It’s a similar situation when a graphic designer guides you through your job details with a list of questions.
The designer offers you the brief (the cup), so you can enjoy more satisfaction (the delicious fruit) because the job is done correctly – and meets your objectives – without too many unnecessary revisions (also known as gnawing pieces of mango from the skin and getting it all over your face).
Yes, there can be a lot of questions depending on what kind of design job we’re tackling. The first time might feel a little uncomfortable (trust me, it was weird to use a cup with a mango the first few times!), but the end result is so much better.
The message here is not to feel overwhelmed when asked to put together a brief for a designer. It’s my job to guide you on the input and help you to tell me what you need so that together (yep, together!) we can achieve what it is you set out to do.
Why a brief might be the most important part of the process
As you can appreciate there’s a unique process to every job and we like to work closely with our clients to get the best out of them.
A brief is just one of the many tools we use in our suite of processes. We believe it’s one of the most important parts of the graphic design process. Why?
1. It’s all the job specs written down in one place.
2. It ensures we’re on the same page and can go back to it at any stage to make sure we’re on the right track.
3. It’s a more efficient way to get the details we both need and get the job done in the most efficient way because there are fewer revisions, (like the cup helping to slice the mango in the analogy above).
What’s included in a Minta brief
At Minta, we like to ask questions. We’re the Uncle-John-at-Christmas-type, asking you what you do for a living, what your partner’s name is again, and if you’re still into Macgyver (uh, yeah).
We ask a lot of questions that might seem like overkill to some, but we do our best work when we’re really clear on the end goal and we understand all the job specifications.
The kind of questions we usually ask as part of the brief include:
Telling us a bit about the job which is like an ice-breaker, or an elevator pitch.
Considering your target audience, so you have an image in your head of who’s going to see this fine piece of work when it’s in the wild.
Adding in some visual references to styles to get you to think about visual outcomes, like calm vs bold, or classic vs modern.
Delving into the final outputs like size, file type, and whether you need the job printed or displayed digitally on a screen.
Sharing the content that’ll be included as part of the design, so we know how much copy and what kind of images we are working with.
Have you worked with a designer before and found a brief really helped with the project?
If you want a peek at what our example graphic design brief looks like, head on over here and we’ll share it with you right away. It’s even got editable fields, so feel free to use it for your next design project!