How do you find inspiration and mange those numerous projects at once? this session had four designers/creative people discussing how they work and what the processes and environments are they use. The concept and idea for this panel was good and something where working in a large corporation where I am responsible for resourcing of designers is critical in my role.

Moderator: Kelsey Ruger Dir Tech & Creative Svcs, The Moleskin
Bryan Veloso  Avalonstar
Jeff Croft   Web Designer,   World Online
Veerle Pieters   CEO/Graphic/Web Designer,   Duoh! nv
Kelsey Ruger   Dir Tech & Creative Svcs,   The Moleskin

Kelsey kicked of the session putting forward the question “How do designers work and how can they be more effective?” which would underline the whole session and ran through some key skills for a designer. The anatomy of a web designer and from previous questions that they had posed to designers had decided they are a diverse bunch who are passionate about what they do and need outside influences to bring to their designs, i.e. hobbies.
Jeff went on to describe his daily working environment as a fast paced and collaborative team, he used his office time to code while there were distractions and then used outside of the office time to design (he has a very laid back employer). Interestingly all the panelists needed different things to allow them to work,

• Bryan required distractions to keep him awake.
• Veerle used music to block out distractions but needed complete silence to code

The influences to the panelist working process also varied as much,

• with Veerle being influence from a print background and expanding in to web work.
• Bryan came from a business degree and as such has a corporate background and used those models
• Kelsey need to structure his art and computer background to provide structure to the work he produced

All the panelists agreed that you need to create a system that works for you and stick to it. They mentioned the “getting things done” by David Allen as one approach but how anything from digital solutions link Basecamp through to post-it notes can work the key is finding what works best for you. Also that you need to be able to step back and clear your head from it all to give yourself clarity when needed.

• Other key points to working efficiently is to know your influences “what works well for you?” be it your wife, art, etc use that knowledge.
• Also for your own sanity and the sanity of those you work with “be organised” for example comment and organise code so that other can read it. Name every photoshop layer and folder so that some one else can pick it and understands it straight away.
• Again like the “After the Brief: A Field Guide to Design Inspiration“  it was mentioned the importance of being able to record your inspiration when you have them be it a notebook or sketch pad but anything that suits you.
• You need to be able to have fun and enjoy your work, if you are expected to be creative and inspired on a daily basis it needs to be fun and you needed to be able to do wacky things sometimes, I think this extends beyond just creative people and everyone should do this once in a while.
• Over estimate your timescales for design, being creatively inspired on your own projects is easy compared to a piece of work.
• never jump directly into creating the page or application, design it first. be it in photoshop of else where if you go straight into production you will constrain the design by thinking within that environment.

The presentation is avalible at http://designworkflows.com/