How I Think Before I Design Anything.
The work you never see is the work that decides everything you do see. This is what happens in the gap before the first pixel.
Everyone wants to see the finished screen. Almost nobody asks what happened before it existed. That gap, the quiet stretch between a brief and a first pixel, is where the real work happens.
It starts with the brain: not the brief on paper, but the actual person who has to make a decision because of what I build. What are they afraid of. What are they hoping nobody notices. What would make them trust a stranger with their money or their attention in the next few seconds.
From there comes the insight, the one true thing hiding under all the stated requirements. A brief will tell you what a client wants. It rarely tells you what their customer actually needs to feel safe. Finding that gap is the whole job.
Only after the insight is clear do I let myself think in shapes and colors, the concept stage. This is where most people start, which is why most work looks like decoration instead of decision.
Execution is last on purpose. It's the easiest part once the first three are right, and the hardest part to fix if they're wrong. You cannot polish your way out of a weak insight. You can only postpone noticing it.
You cannot polish your way out of a weak insight. You can only postpone noticing it.
So before I open any tool, I ask the same four questions in the same order, every time. What's in their head. What's the one true thing. What shape does that thing want to take. What does it take to actually ship it. Skip a step and it shows, even if nobody can say exactly where.