2. Research & Design
To know what we don’t know
From lesson 2, we found that research is always the solid foundation for the whole design process. Doing research before we start to design, could help us clear our minds, and to know what we don’t know.
By collecting and analyzing the relevant data through either primary or secondary research methods. We can better understand the proportional relationship between the commodity supply and demand in the market, as to adopt the correct strategies and set up the right direction to meet stakeholders’ needs, even to improve and increase the economic benefits.
Case Sharing: Designing a furniture booklet for my clients
I once completed a show flat project with all sets of my company designed furniture. And there was an idea pumped up from the client-side, they would like to cross-collaboration with us to promote their properties X our designed furniture to the potential buyers as a boutique package.
Though my professional expertise is in interior design, this special task was at last assigned to me to be in charge.
How to Start?
Analyse what I do know and what I don’t know
For the hard skill part, aka the technical skills, I know I’m familiar with Adobe Photoshop, AutoCAD, 3D rendering software, and a bit of basic Adobe InDesign (InDesign mainly uses for layout design).
For the soft skill part, since I’m no graphic designer, I was truly no idea how to design a booklet. The only thing I know about typography is that alignment is very important.
But as a problem solver, I started to go online searching for a variety of booklet designs as taking references, also google what kind of key elements I should notice when designing a booklet / How graphic design can help get your customers’ attention/ etc.
From Research to Development
Besides designing the booklet layouts, I also need to handle the production process for publishing. The fastest way to get the resources I need is to start from my own network. Luckily I have some friends who are working in the graphic design industries and they have referred a few printing-house to me after knowing my situation. Nevertheless, I had also online searched to find alternative suppliers just in case.
Request Quotations to Do the Comparison
From contacting different suppliers to order the MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity). I learned a lot about the knowledge in this industry. Such as, there are a lot of paper types for different purposes, from the thickness to the textures, these tiny elements would all affect the printout effect.
Be a Problem Solver
We all understand design is aimed to solve the problem, but knowing how to solve is the key point for us when facing challenges.
Never Be Ashamed to Ask
In the above situation, I needed to get into a field that I was not familiar with. However, this is very common for us, right? Deal with the new challenges and seek a way to fix them out. And in this case, I asked for help in order to solve the new task.
Besides, this is the era of the internet, there are so many resources we could just click and find within a second. The powerful online resources have already helped us to understand at least 30–40% of common knowledge in some specialisations. The next step would be to consult the experts for extra information. And they could be your teachers, friends, suppliers, even your clients, etc.
Be Humble, Be Kind
Asking, in a good attitude could not only allow you to learn something new but also help you to gain the precious resource: Friendship. It might somehow become a connecting point and might help you to solve a new puzzle someday. Furthermore, always try our best to lend our helping hands when someone knocks on the door; because we might as well be an expert to them.
Conclusion
If we have learned how effective communication could bring out design solutions (refer to my previous journal /1. Communication & Design /), then doing research could definitely help us to extend our branches through settling the destination, reaching out into different aspects of professions, or even to make a new connection into the unknown.
