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Abstract
Brainstorming in design typically uses an informal scattered approach. In contrast to this we introduce a focused brainstorming process, adapted from an approach called Motivational Modelling, to guide the process of designing brands. We describe a case study of four real-world briefs, where 79 graphic designers created brandmarks over 12 weeks. The Motivational Modelling approach involves a structured, threestage process. First, Do/Be/Feel goal generation sessions create word lists. Second, initial brand value diagrams are produced from a subset of the word lists to build brand understanding by entering the words into a custom designed software program. Finally, branded story diagrams are designed to match the brands. We found that the three-stage process was easily adopted by the graphic designers. Creating the diagrams kickstarted the overall branding strategy, which successfully prompted interesting brand values, and clarified project and organizational goals. Clients appreciated and implemented the final brainstorming and branding outcomes.
Keywords
brainstorming; creativity; design method(s); design tools; graphic design
Brainstorming methods are popular to encourage creativity in the ideation phase of the design process; however, designers typically use an informal ad hoc way to explain and to facilitate the brainstorming which we call a scattergun approach, that can be time-consuming and often difficult to document. Graphic designers want to document the brainstorming process to make the ideation process comprehensible for the client. We have not found any evidence in the literature that graphic designers have previously thought to learn from the systematic and repeatable software engineering methods to see what benefits they may offer the brainstorming process. In this paper we present a case study where we brought graphic design and software engineering methods together with the expectation that the brainstorming process and documentation in graphic design would be positively affected.
The approach we used is called Motivational Modelling, a focused and documented process for brainstorming and idea generation, with its key method being Do/Be/Feel goal generation (Lorca, Burrows, & Sterling, 2018). Motivational Modelling is a two-stage process, the method for which is described in an article by Lorca, Burrows, and Sterling (2018).
The first stage for Motivational Modelling is running a Do/Be/Feel goal generation session. Do/Be/Feel goal generation is a brainstorming method where key stakeholders of the project, such as key project members,...