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Design Process Revealed: Aaron Draplin Walks You Through a Logo Design

By Rain Noe - December 12, 2014

in Graphic Design

I greatly enjoyed Barry Berkus' "How to Think Like an Architect" videos, and have been searching in vain for an industrial design counterpart. To have a creative designer walk you through, in plain English, a design as it unfurls is immensely edifying, but I can't find an ID guy who's done it.

I did, however, luckily stumble across Field Notes man and Curiosity Club veteran Aaron Draplin breaking down a graphic design project. Learning website Lynda.com tasked Draplin with designing a logo—something that can take months—and condensing it all into a sit-able video. Not only does Draplin render his process completely transparent, there's a bonus starting around 15:00, when he discusses what happened after he decided to go freelance.

Aaron Draplin Takes On a Logo Design Challenge from lynda.com on Vimeo.

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KPR

9 years ago

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Aaron is a good guy and a great designer. He has a very classic, well refined style that's worked really well for him over the years and within the world in which he works.

This video is not a parody or a case for logo design taking 15 minutes. It's merely a condensed version of Aaron's process.

As for providing options: I have worked in design for many years - in both visual design and product design - for many talented and bright designers. I have never once seen any of them present a single design as THE sole solution. This is design, not science. There are no right or wrong answers. Just answers that are better than others.
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Product tank

9 years ago

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@ hipstomp - challenge accepted
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thornton

9 years ago

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@Gabriel - I'm going to offer my clients a small handful of options, but in the process I'm faced with tens or hundreds of incremental variations. I am, if anything, relieved to watch someone else work through a solution the way I do, on a big AI artboard, cmd-option duplicating each new variant. And since I know I can trust my clients to pick the not-best solution, I have a good game ready to talk at them if they start to go awry. But this isn't about managing clients, it's about a solid process of discovery and problem solving before that point.
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Gabriel

9 years ago

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Loved what he's done and how he's presented it, but it is not our job as designers to give options, but to offer one solid solution.

If an when possible, designers should give one solution that works, period. Clients are not always qualified to decide what works and tend to go for what they like. What works (and designers know what does) and what clients like, are often not one and the same.
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Eric

9 years ago

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Is this guy real? I think this is some sort of a parody video...
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