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Being a Designer: Creating a Structure to Improve your Productivity

Design can be a wonderful thing; a way to express your creativity and earn a living at the same time. However, like many creative jobs, have a method to your work can boost productivity significantly.

Put together a creative brief − When embarking on a new project, ensure you have a clear idea of what you are attempting and what message you want to put across. Even if you are working for a client, the brief they offer may be very vague. Either spend some time with your client so you get a clear idea of what they are specifically looking for or, if they have given you a lot of freedom in the design, sit down and map out what you think the brief should contain before you start of work on the design itself.

Map out your time − Sometimes being creative makes time management harder as briefs may vary in complexity and deadline times. Once you have your brief set, try to give yourself mini-deadlines for each stage of your work. This can help if a brief seems like an overwhelming amount of work too.

Have an approval policy − Work with your client to create an approval policy for your work. With this sort of approval policy the client can monitor the work and make any changes before too much time is wasted and after each stage of approval you can move on happy in the knowledge the client is pleased with your work.