There is so much talent and creativity expressed in these designs, it just makes me feel happy and privileged to read about it! I love the idea of design as an evolution, looking at it in that light makes me think you don’t have to hit a homerun on the first draft of a design, but rather get some ideas on paper and let them evolve.

These ideas were certainly true of my blog link I provided. The end result was nothing like the first couple go’s at it. It’s worth the time and energy if it means getting it right, though.

Thanks again!

What you are searching for at the beginning of a design is an idea, a spark, something to hang the visual identity around, and if you restrict the way you explore this by saying ONLY computer or photoshop work, then of course you run the risk of cutting off an idea.

Certain things like logos do generally work well on paper earlier as miniscule changes can take a while on the computer, but with a website, designing it on screen initially can fuel the ideas, so that when you go to your sketchbook, you have some idea of what will or won’t work.

Of course in any case whichever way of working happens to suit the designer is the right one!

I have to be honest… as much as I would like to, I don’t actually have a set design process.
Sometimes I start sketching first sometimes I don’t. It just depends what comes into my head.

On this occasion you’re right… I didn’t really do any sketches first. This happened for two reasons.

1. I new what had to be on the home page content wise and it was very simple (at this beginning stage).
2. I really wanted to do something graphical and working in photoshop seemed appropriate. In a funny way I guess I did sketch out ideas first… photoshop sketches.

I personally don’t think there’s is a right or a wrong way to go about these things. It’s just how it works best for you :)

I love the freshness of the new site and the illustrations are fantastic and so clean.

Interesting approach. There are a lot of mockups in there. It seems you jumped right into Photoshop and started designing stuff. I’m not saying this is wrong, every designer has their way of doing things, but the general favoured method usually starts with ideas on paper, then wireframes (paper or digital) then design mockup. I’m curious if you did any layout sketching or wireframes first? And did you approach this brief differently to how you would approach a client brief?

Also a big fan of the new blog design by the way.