I think the earlier stages of a project are most important, basically just sitting in your desired environment thinking about the project. Whether it is in silence or chilling to your favourite tunes on your iPod, outlining the details of the project in your mind before you put pen to paper does help.

With experience you start to think differently. I think the most important key to a successful web design is a futureproof design.

Make sure at the early stages you consider things like, what will happen to the design if the client adds more content or more products to the site?. Things like this can become a ball ache at later stages if not thought about upfront.

I wont waffel on any more :)

going for a run with some tunes for company gives me a ton of ideas

Amen! Going for a (long) run is a big creativity boost. Ide

Maybe I should buy a little 80s tape recorder and start recording all my ideas whilst running.
If it works for special agent cooper, works for me! :)

Helpfull post!
I”d love to see some of the “sketches” metioned above by other commenters.

One other approach I use uis to right out some simple personas of the people the site is targetting along with some keywords or concepts that relate to them. This way you can bear in mind their needs as you design.

I also find creating basic HTML wireframes of the design helps to clarify and layout issues or porportions and also speeds up the build later on.

On bigger projects I then go from sketches to wireframes, I find these are a great help when various process and huge amounts of content need to be considered, obviously there might be time constraints that affect this..

Good stuff Mike, and I’ll keep my eye out for more from you!

It is something that I have been guilty of in the past as I guess a lot of us are. It can often be difficult to convince some bosses we need planning time before execution as personally I find my work becomes stifiled and uncreative just relying on the computer. I always now carry around my sketchbook again to make sure I don’t fall into that trap. It is so refreshing getting away from the computer for inspiration!

Good post Mike

I’d introduce a fireworks stage after the design in photoshop stage. Fireworks is faster for exporting your graphics - as well as optimizing a damn site better than photoshop. The same export from photoshop can sometimes be double the size of a photoshop export.

Keep truckin dude, loving the work!

I am quite guilty of just diving into design, and I should truly take a step back and watch the project come together before even touching it.

I often find my design process makes the biggest developments when I get onto photoshop and start making the first mockups.

Playing around with different colours and shapes usually gives me a lot of ideas and inspiration, more so than looking at other peoples designs and sketching.

Jason - good point about starting your design with the content. Sort of working from the inside out… I’ve tried this in the past with some good results.

Paul - like your point about keeping it simple for the first proposals you present to a client - makes a lot of sense.

Ryan - Sometimes use a loose grid…really depends on the project.

Maria - love your analogy to the body parts ;)