The REAL design process

Michael Beirut, partner at Pentagram, describes his *real* design process:

“When I do a design project, I begin by listening carefully to you as you talk about your problem and read whatever background material I can find that relates to the issues you face. If you’re lucky, I have also accidentally acquired some firsthand experience with your situation. Somewhere along the way an idea for the design pops into my head from out of the blue. I can’t really explain that part; it’s like magic. Sometimes it even happens before you have a chance to tell me that much about your problem!”

As much as we like to tell ourselves (and others) about our robust, repeatable, formal design process, great work usually comes down to a little bit of magic.