Key Principals: A brief History of Production and The Design Workflow

Understanding our history is a useful knowledge to hold as it gives us insight into past developments and ingenuity, as well as general hypothesises to possible shifts in trend which may occur in the future. In terms of production, specifically to print then the earliest dated book originates to the 'Diamond Sutra' which was translated from Sanskrit (one of the worlds oldest known languages) into Chinese, printed around AD400. This is contrasted hugely when comparing it to Europe's first printed book in 1455, the 'Mazarin Bible' or 'Forty Two Line Bible', produced by Gutenberg at Strasberg. This was the first major book to be printed in a moveable type printing press system, and consequently marked the start of Gutenberg's success, (otherwise known as the Gutenberg Revolution) as well as the start of the age to the printed book. Gutenbergs Bible became highly praised and earned an 'iconic' status, not just down to it being the first european book printed, but because of its artistic qualities and brilliant aesthetics. 

Here I have made a work flow for the current L4 visual communications project, based on my RVJ progress. Currently I am constructing my first draft to as higher quality as possible in order to minimalise edits required to result in the final design. This is how I often work, creating concepts before research (as mentioned in a prior blog) since it doesn't limit your creativity.

My only problem with this L4 group flow, is the overwhelming lack of group mentality; aka my group has done nothing. Therefore, any stages where I would consult with the team in order to gain feedback I have done so with tutors, fellow designers or friends who sit inside my audience demographic. This has caused problems in my workflow, because while one member was not turning up to meetings or producing work when asked and the other had no idea what to do, reluctant to attempt, I was forced to create a firmly structured grid for them both to stick to hopefully making work easier for them. This lead to a highly static and uncreative set of concepts when mocked up by me, and forced us to change tack. At this point my team was still seemingly reluctant to do work, and so I began forming my own design style to hand in separately while remaining in the group. This is where my design workflow stepped back into stride. Back in the group, I maintain to be the only truly motivated figure and will do my upmost to see that 'workflow' through.

Although not listed in this flow, I will constantly check my state of work in correlation with time to see how much has been accomplished and how much is left, noting developments and thoughts into my RVJ both literally and visually.

As far as my track record lays, this maintains to be a fairly smooth and comfortable workflow in creating successful and thorough work.