The most powerful tool in Adobe Illustrator.
When I was in my mid-20s, I went to my first design review with Collins.
As I walked into the (very small) meeting room, I saw the other designers getting ready to present their work. They had stacks of print outs; they were covering the walls. The entire room was literally covered floor to ceiling in design ideas. It was incredible.
I had brought a single sheet of paper with 1 desperate design idea.
They were very kind to me. “See, you need more more more!” they said. I left that meeting feeling invigorated and alive. For the first time in my career, I wanted to make a lot of stuff.
You see, I cut my teeth in what Brian called Art Director Design. Everything fits semi-comfortably in its little box. You don’t imagine and expand, you settle and refine. The foundational design elements are selected in the first meeting, the ensuing meetings are spent wasting time discussing design minutiae.
I had learned design process backwards.
The first thing I did after that eye-opening meeting was return to my desk and begin copying and pasting artboards in my Illustrator file. 10, 20, 30, 40. I tried to remember how many print outs other designers had brought to the meeting. I was inspired by all the constructive feedback they’d received as a result. I wanted that. I wanted to be like the people that were making lots of stuff.
Make a few small changes, and copy to a new artboard. And again. A few more changes. Less over-thinking. More making. Make the circle blue. Change the font. Make it stupid. Make it funny. Design something bad on purpose—Brian will laugh at that. Hide a joke in a layout. Reveal an emotion in an image. Play. Another artboard. And another.
The reason why it’s so important to make lots of stuff when you’re developing design ideas is because you cannot reasonably assess something without a basis of comparison. Otherwise you’re just sharing raw opinion which, useful as it may be in some contexts, isn’t a very reliable methodology in a critique.
You attest that a square would look better than a circle here? Prove it.
When your goal is to create lots of things rather than an end product, you become less precious—more open minded, more willing. You worry less about the end result and more about how you’re getting there, and that’s the foundation of a great design process.
When you bring lots of work to a design review, it’s easier for people to help you. It’s easier to see what is working, and what isn’t. It’s easier to get excited about ideas. You find so many fun details that you sometimes forget you even made; other designers help you see them and understand what’s great about them. Collaboration becomes more powerful; teams become stronger.
