5 Tips To Streamline Your Design Process

Michael Labos
4 min readApr 4, 2022

Do you want to be a better designer? The first step is to streamline your design process. The design process is about more than just creating design assets, it’s about understanding how to create, how to manage and how to improve. Here are 5 tips to streamline your design process and make you a much better designer.

1. Define your goals

One of the first things you want to do when streamlining your design process is to define your goals. What is the purpose of your design project? What is the purpose of your design project? What are the main factors you will consider when designing? Having a well-defined project is a vital part of streamlining. Another step you can take is defining your audience. Knowing who you are designing for is another important step. Knowing the kind of person you are designing for will help you to make well-informed design decisions. By streamlining your design process and defining your goals, you will be able to create more efficiently and effectively. Your design process will get you to your goals faster, saving you time and energy.

2. Research your options

Design can be a pretty chaotic process especially when you’re trying to create something new and innovative. There are a lot of things that go into it from what the color scheme should be to what type of font to use and whether or not the layout should be fluid or fixed. Deciding the appropriate design element can be difficult and this is why it’s important to do research to help make your decision easier. A good place to start is by doing research on similar designs and seeing what worked and what didn’t.

3. Choose the right tools

While there is no set rule for choosing the right tools, there are a few key things to keep in mind. First, choose tools that work for you and your team. Don’t allow yourself to get stuck in a routine of using the same kind of tool, as that can hold you back from developing your skills. Second, learn how to use your tools with speed. There are lots of different ways to accomplish the same thing in each program and knowing how to use the tools quickly will save you lots of time and energy so you can focus on your projects. Lastly, don’t be afraid to try something new. While it is tempting to stick with tools you know, sometimes you need to try new tools to get your vision out.

4. Create a Process for Working Together

If you’re working with a design team, it’s important to create a process for working together. Before you begin work on a project, layout specific steps everyone will go through before work begins. This includes finding examples of the brand style guide and logo as well as examples of previous work and color palettes. This will help get everyone on the same page at the start of the project. This also applies to freelance designers. You may have a style guide and brand guidelines readily available. If so, share it with your designer. You may also want to share examples of previous work and color palettes. This will help them gain an understanding of your brand and style.

5. Stay organized

When you design, it’s easy to get off track, especially when you’re doing things on the fly. This can cause you to lose track of information, run out of time, and eventually lead to mistakes in the design process. To avoid this, you need to stay organized and have a plan of action for each aspect of the design. First, you need to organize your time by deciding how long you’re going to spend on each aspect of the design. Next, you need to organize and gather whatever you’ll need during that time and put it in a place where you can easily access it, and finally, stay organized throughout the process and keep track of your progress so that you know where you stand and can still get it done in time.

To sum up

Hopefully, as a designer, you will have witnessed the importance of streamlining your design process. When you can design in a streamlined manner, it allows you to be more efficient in your workflow and overall creates a better design. The 5 tips mentioned above will help you to streamline your design process so that you can become more efficient in your workflow.

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Michael Labos

Co-Founder and Marketing Director @MulaveStudios with an interest in design and marketing