Great designers definitely having a sharper eye than most, but a lot of their choices are less “instinctive” than most people realise — there is research involved, education in design history, various projects under their belt, etc — that helps designers make better decisions that seem “automatic.”

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Design Decisions.

Designers trying to justify their decisions without resorting to the age old “it just looks good. Clients can be fickle, and if you don’t have strong reasons to back up your design, you could quickly fall into the quicksand that is multiple client revisions with no purpose. Justifying your design decisions helps establish yourself an authority on the subject.

A good exercise to help critical design thinking skills is to take one of your favourite site designs and break it down. How can you break it down? Here are some suggestions:

1. Count and write down how many typefaces and styles the site uses

2. Recognize the size differences between the type elements

3. Ask yourself why they chose those specific typefaces (e.g. Serif generally is more authoritative and old-fashioned, while sans-serif has a more contemporary flavour)

4. Identify “decorative” or superfluous assets that enhance the design

5. Identify “decorative” or superfluous assets that hinder the design

6. Recognize the colour palette — is it consistent?

7. Is there a theme or metaphor?

8. Go through the layout and number each element in the order of importance in the layout. After, see if the way it’s laid out or emphasized is parallel to the priority of information.

9. Ask “Who is the audience of this layout? Is it appropriate? Why or why not?”

10. Ask “Is this relevant?”

The above will be a bit of a starting point to help you recognize choices good designers make — and why. Justify your design decisions, and more people will take you, as a designer, seriously.

-Credits: lealea’s blogblog.