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OJC Print Projects: Process Tour

Design

In this phase, we bring all of the knowledge gathered in the Planning phase and start our creative work. Design involves:

Requirements Review and Design Brief

The designer and project manager review the information gathered, including your responses to the Design Survey. Using all of this data, we create a Design Brief document, and submit it to you for approval. Modifications to the Design Brief are often made as a result of the next phase, the Client Meeting.
View Sample Design Brief (MS Word document)

Client Meeting

At this point, we have a sense of the right track and we want to meet with you to confirm this. Face to face communication, with all of the stakeholders at the table, can reveal the unexpected. We don't want any "unexpecteds" later on, so we bring them to the surface now. We may show sketches or print formats that best embody our design direction to make sure we understand your aesthetics.

Initial Mockup of Design Concept

Armed with clear direction, we create a set of design mockups, often distilling the work down to one or two versions. We present these to you by posting them to the Project Website. Upon request, we can deliver a printed mockups as well.

Client Review of Design Concept

You review the concept internally and tell us your gut reactions as well as your detailed revision suggestions.

Further Design Iterations

We take the strongest design, refine it, and resubmit it to you. There are often several interations before the design is approved.

Design Concept Approval

We conduct a formal sign-off with all project stakeholders.

Application of Design in Style Sheets and Templates

We build the final design into QuarkXpress templates and style sheets, and then lay out and format the text. Upon delivery, these templates become yours so that you have the option of reusing the "containers" for subsequent versions; for example, in a newsletter where the format stays the same but the text changes.

Hard-Copy Mockup Approval

Once the piece is complete, we build a model of it for you to hold in your hands. For example, if the piece is a tri-fold brochure, the designer prints out the brochure, trims it to the specified size, and folds or binds it so that it closely resembles the final, professionally printed piece. We advise that you spend a few days living with this model to see if you are comfortable with it. There may be a few additional tweaks at this point, which is normal. Once we build a final model, the piece is ready to go to print.

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