Speaker 1: Designing ever made you feel like this? You're not alone. I've been there many a times myself, staring at a blank canvas with a looming deadline, feeling the pressure to deliver something amazing for a client and worrying that they're not going to think I'm worth what they paid me. It's frustrating, demotivating and downright stressful. But after years of trial and error, I stumbled upon a solution that's going to make starting your next project 10 times easier, even if you have no ideas. But in order to uncover exactly what that is, we must first travel back in time to identify the mistakes younger me was making. So here I was, day one of a new branding project. It was for a coffee company, an industry up until then I'd never designed for. The previous week had been spent going back and forth with the client, discussing deliverables, pricing and going over their business, so I was ready to start the design process. At least, that's what I thought. But after opening up Illustrator, something dawned on me. The client had requested a design style that I was totally inexperienced with. In fact, this would be my first time working with a food and drink company at all. Suddenly, that blank canvas was staring back at me, followed by a wave of existential dread. I'd awoken the beast. Now, as designers, we all know that when you have this little gremlin on your shoulder, it not only strips you of your confidence and joy, but your creativity too. Meaning, 15 minutes later, I was still staring at the same blank canvas. But I had a solution. I knew that going on Pinterest and looking for some inspo would help get those creative juices flowing. Take that, imposter syndrome. And at the time, this helped massively. Seeing a bunch of real-life examples sparked some ideas. But as we'll soon uncover, this actually came back to bite me. See, what I thought was the answer to curing my lack of creativity was, in fact, just paper over the cracks. I still hadn't addressed the root of my problem. Anyway, I left Pinterest with a head full of ideas and a positive mindset. So, I got to work. A couple days later, and the logotype was done. But there was a major problem. It looked just like the inspiration I had pulled from Pinterest. And just like that, I was back to square one. This was a high-budget project. I knew I needed to deliver something that's unique and would stand out amongst competitors, not one that falls in line. But realising this just piled even more pressure onto me. And it's hard to be creative when you're carrying that on your shoulders. So, what did young Abby do? I'll tell you exactly what she did. She sulked and felt sorry for herself. And after hours spent aimlessly scrolling through her phone and indulging in her own self-pity, she decided to just call it a day in hopes of coming back feeling refreshed and revitalised in the morning with a bucket full of ideas. Turns out, nothing changed. I just found myself incapable of coming up with ideas. This lasted for days, until I was eventually powered on by the looming deadline of the project and got the logo and branding to a place I was happy with. The client was happy. But for some reason, I was still feeling frustrated. Why had I found this project so stressful? This was meant to be my passion, what I'm good at. So, why was I finding it so hard all of a sudden? I knew if I wanted to have the successful design business I dreamt of, I'd need to figure out the problem and find a solution. So, what did I do to prevent this creative block from happening on future projects? Well, instead of just telling you, let me show you how I would approach this project now and see if you can spot what's been implemented. First, after the client has enquired, I would jump on a call with them to discuss the scope of the project, deliverables and learn more about the business as a whole. Secondly, I would put together a project proposal document outlining the whole design process and include things such as the project timeline, cost and confirmation of the deliverables. Third, if the client is happy to proceed, I will set up a client portal for them which outlines all important information about the project including a contract and payment dates. Fourth, it's time to start the design process and I would kick things off with strategy, learning more about the business, their competitors and the industry as a whole. Fifth, it would be time to move on to designing the logo variations, brand collateral and identifying a colour palette. Lastly, I would present the brand to a client in a presentation explaining all the design decisions. One of these steps I've mentioned is absolutely key to solving the creativity problem I was having before. See, without realising it, I was making three major mistakes during this step that were directly causing the lack of ideas. It was the implementation of an in-depth and complete brand strategy stage. So these are the three mistakes many designers make at this stage and the three solutions I found to prevent me ever being short on ideas again. The first was introduced to address the mistake of only learning about the business on a surface level. Now I do something called brand foundations where I take a deep dive into the business, finding out their purpose, mission, vision and brand values. The next stage I added was brand positioning. See, one of the mistakes I used to make was not doing any research on brand competitors. So now I carry out market research, analyse competitors and the brand's target audience and personality. And the final stage was added to help make my designs unique and prevent them looking similar to the competitors and that is design solutions. In this stage, I take my research from the previous two stages and provide strategic design solutions alongside creating mood boards to showcase the creative direction of the brand. Now you're probably thinking, how do I put all of this together? Well, that's where the sponsor of today's video comes in, Millernote. I use their design brief template to compile all of my research notes, mood boards, etc. Meaning I can easily reference it throughout the whole design process preventing me from ever getting short on ideas. It's also easy to share with other team members who are working on the same project so they can access the board and leave their input. If you want to sign up for free, click the first link in my description. Now I'm hoping this video has given you the knowledge to overcome your next creative rut. But if you're wondering exactly how you make a brand mood board, then you need to watch this video right here where I go in-depth with a tutorial all on how to create this.