As I sit here, a good four day’s worth of work on the screen in the concise and almost insulting form of a site banner, I’m reminded at how frustrating inefficient and painstaking the design process can be. It’s awful repetitive, and you can tweak the smallest detail for days before you realize what you thought looked good in your head is a monstrosity when brought to life and would kindly ask for euthanasia.
I like to think of design as a trifecta of processes: creation, elimination, and consolidation; or, in non-corporate speak, the artist, the critic, and the editor. The artist serves as a factory of prototypes, taking ideas to reality; the critic’s job is to apply Sturgeon’s law and strip away all the bad ideas; the editor takes what’s left, combines the good ideas within each remaining design, and tweaks the result.
Then start again from the top.