How planning can save your life!

In the course of designing and coding several things, I have learned a few very important things about planning. Designing is a process of creativity; it flows from the brain to the paper. But, in a jumble of ideas, this flow often gets contorted into a knot that destroys the original creativity. Thus, I shall attempt to summarize my mistakes into a few succinct lessons for you.

1. The importance of planning

Planning is one of the most important processes of design. This becomes especially true when designing websites. I have never been one to outline much, but after countless mistakes I urge you to plan your designs. Quickly you will find that without planning your design runs into problems as you head for disaster. The solution is quite simply to plan. While it may not necessarily save you, it sure does a good job of protecting you.

2. Grid design

Planning with grids is a great skill. It has no doubt tripled my ability to align items. Thus, I recommend you employ the use of grids; they are one of those subtle details that will enhance your website.

3. Schedules

Schedules are only important for pacing. You can create a schedule to have a design finished in an hour or one to finish a design in a month, either way schedules protect you from laziness. But they also protect you from eagerness. They force you to pause from your creating and not become obsessed. In terms of designing, they encourage you to take a break and look at your design from a different perspective, thus, enabling you to see obstacles before they occur.

4. Code and design

It is still important to plan with code or design. When doing both, it does become double-y important. When you code a design, you are setting the design’s structure into stone (this is why I also recommend less rigid structures). From there it is very difficult to fix your problems. It is definitely still possible, but it definitely demotivates you.

5. Love your design in the planning

I have learned that there are an unlimited number of designs out there that I love and would draw inspiration from. There is no doubt that I will find another design out there—one that makes me want to change my entire style—but, however much I may love that design, I must settle on one design or nothing will ever begin to be finished.

Therefore, plan the design you love. Keep planning until you could never wish to change this design and it embodies all the styles you love because, if you do not, you will find yourself wanting to constantly change your design. Set yourself on one design and create! This, however, does not mean to ignore outside feedback, but it does mean to discourage volatility in your designs.

Those are my lessons from designing and coding, but I have not answered your question of “how?” yet. So, here’s how. I encourage you to use a whiteboard. I like sketching on paper, but when you want to erase a single element on paper, you are limited to using a pencil which often does not show the same contrast as a pen. Thus, I prefer a whiteboard.

Once you have laid down the sketch for your design you must turn to mock-ups. Being able to create mock-up designs on a computer is a highly underrated skill. I suggest you take what your plans are for your final design (website, poster, etc.) and simplify it to the spartan look (block elements are great). Thus, you can see the contrast of the elements as well as color.

In summary, plan your designs!