This is the first draft of an infographic I made for a research organization. I'm including the different stages this design went through for several reasons. I find that designing for a new client can be very challenging. I've never designed for IWMI or a research organization before. My initial design (see below) is extremely different than what was actually printed.
I think with sites like Dribbble, it's easy for designers to glamorize their work. What we see on Dribbble and other show-off sites like Designspiration.com are incredible and inspirational. But I wonder how many of the designs on those sites actually end up being used by clients.
I like the challenge of creating a design my client loves and that I would also be happy to put in my folio. I find the best jobs are those that give me both freedom and restrictions. The best part of the creative process for me is after the first draft is painstakingly revealed to my client. I've learned so much by letting go and listening. The clients I work with have great input and if I listen, my designs are get better.
Go figure.
I also signed up on Forrst, an online community for developers and designers aimed at providing solid feedback on work. I put this design up as my first post and this design was picked as a "Ranger Pick" which I guess is their way of saying good job. Here's a link to my work on Forrst: https://forrst.com/people/SaraSayami There's a great discussion on font size.
Below is the 2nd rough draft of the design above. I sent first draft to my client and it was well-received, but there were oh-so-many changes. Font changes, content changes, color changes, and layout changes...
rough draft 2
You can see how different the first and second drafts are. I tried to design something with a clean, corporate style while still engaging the audience.
I'm living in Nepal. We don't have electricity for about 12 hours out of each day. We don't have nice printers. We don't have nice paper. Since I had never made a poster that was 48 inches, I wanted to make sure my 15pt text was large enough and my 150pt text was not too big. I went to a printer in Kathmandu who I knew printed black and white building plans and asked if he could print my A0 design. Below is the outcome. It cost me $4.00 and an immense amount of confidence. Completely different looking at the same design on a 12-inch computer screen...I recommend printing the entire piece, whenever you can, as often as you can - within reason.
check out how big these are...had no idea an A0 was so large.
Here are the final 2 designs. One is geared towards gender and one is a general poster about the organization I did these for.
There is one more version coming...one for online purposes and a more general audience.
