5 Tips to Better Brainstorming for Designers
One of the things my design lecturers at university insisted on was that every design project starts with brainstorming not with technology. It’s one thing that has stuck with me and instead of heading straight to the computer to start a project I head straight to the white board or notepad. Here are my top five tips on brainstorming:
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1. Don’t think about it – Daydream
There is some interesting research around that show’s an increased problem solving ability when daydreaming. Thinking around the problem can help you solve them faster than forcing yourself to think about them. How many times have you forgotten the name of something and not been able to remember while trying hard to remember. The answer nearly always comes to you when you stop thinking about it. I’m not advocating not thinking about problems all the time however I think we can use daydreaming to our advantage sometimes and it’s very useful at the start of a project.
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2. Visualise
Athletes use this one a lot to stay focused on their task. Put some music on, sit back and close your eyes and visualise what you are going to produce. I like to think about how people with react and interact with the final product. Imagining what your poster will look like on a wall with 20 other posters helps you see your design in a bigger context. Will the colours work? Is it eye catching? Can you read it? Would you ignore it?
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3. Use words instead of pictures.
This is an idea i picked up from Rico Lins. He advocates starting your brainstorming for visual things by using words. It forces designers to think about solid concepts behind the design rather than the aesthetics. As designers we can get caught up thinking about typography and grid structures at the start of a project when we don’t have a concept that works.
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4. Look around
Look around at other Images, designs, words, concepts and anything else that can be used for reference and inspiration for the project. Don’t copy but ideas can come from all sorts of locations, an overheard discussion on a train, the colour of a building in a certain light, the sounds of machines. You don’t live in a vacuum nor do your designs.
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5. Move outside your own head
If you don’t know what the design is trying to achieve and who the audience is then your job is going to be near impossible. Spending some time at the start of a project defining these can help you generating ideas. Get to know who the audience is and what appeals to them. This is not so you revert to stereotypes when designing but to think about who you will be trying to communicate with.
Happy brainstorming.
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