Design Research

Feeding your eye before you design — building boards, reading the category, and noticing what pulls you in.

Once the boring setup is out of the way, we finally get to the fun part - design research.

This stage is all about exploring other designs and gathering creative fodder. Not only does this spark ideas for your current project, but it also helps train your creative eye. The more designs you intentionally look at and collect, the better you’ll become at spotting patterns, connecting ideas, and generating creative solutions. Think of it as stocking your creative pantry - the more you put in, the more ingredients you’ll have to work with later.

This is the maximalist stage: gather everything that inspires you, even if it feels unrelated. The minimalist stage comes later when you refine, edit, and strip things back to what really works.

And here’s the funny thing about research: often your original idea shifts, gets reshaped, or even replaced with something stronger. Other times, research simply confirms that your first instinct was right. Either way, the process is invaluable.

When you’re designing from scratch, research is crucial. Once your company has a clear set of brand guidelines in place, this phase won’t be as important - because your guidelines will already do much of the heavy lifting for consistent, quick-turn designs.

Remember: art and design are rarely about one brilliant idea. They’re usually about connecting lots of smaller ideas in new ways. That connection starts with research.

How to do it

One of the easiest tools for research is Pinterest.

  • General Ideas Board: Create a board just for your own inspiration, that you can add to anytime. Instead of mindlessly scrolling Instagram, feed your creative pantry with visuals that might help you later.
  • Project-Specific Boards: If you’re working on a particular project, set up a dedicated board for it.

What should you collect? Anything that sparks a reaction. You can find inspiration by searching for:

  • Branding and logos
  • Fonts and typography
  • Colour palettes
  • Product packaging
  • Website design
  • Interiors and storefronts
  • Multi page documents like magazines
  • Fashion
  • Travel and lifestyle images
  • Typography
  • Photography
  • Project specific visuals. E.g for Evergreen Wellness, you might search for yoga, yoga studio, health and wellness inspo

For now, capture anything that captures a vibe that you like. Sometimes it’s colour, sometimes typography, sometimes layout or imagery.

There’s no right or wrong at this stage - just collect, observe, and notice what pulls you in. We go into design theory in the next section in this course - so don’t worry if you’re not sure exactly what you’re looking at, at this stage.

We browse Pinterest most mornings with a cup of coffee. This input is invaluable time spent training your design eye.

Other sources of inspiration for your design research can come from just about anywhere - social channels, a quick Google search/ websites, books and design magazines, print collateral, or even signage you spot out in the world. You don’t have to use Pinterest, but it’s such a handy tool for designers. Not only can you browse what others have shared, but you can also save your own pins from anywhere on the web - perfect for capturing those great design finds you don’t want to lose.

Looking at the Competition

At this research stage, it’s worth taking a closer look at the competition. After all, great design and branding stand out because they’re distinctive and memorable - and you can’t measure ‘different’ without first knowing what’s already out there.

Standing out from the competition Five near-identical pale circles in a row, and one red starburst among them labelled YOU — the one that gets remembered. THE CATEGORY YOUR BRANDThe one you remember You can't measure 'different' until you've seen what everyone else is already doing.
Distinctive only means anything relative to the rest of the category. Look at the others first, then you know which way to move.

We don’t always document this process formally, but as part of our research we always review a brand’s competitors. This usually means checking their websites, social media feeds, and overall presence. As we do this, we mentally note where they may be falling short - whether that’s a lack of polish, inconsistent or thin content, or messaging that isn’t clear. We also form a picture of how their branding looks and feels, which helps us move first toward creating a more distinctive visual identity.

For more in-depth brand or strategy projects, we’ll sometimes go further and create a list of key competitors. Having this documented can be useful later, as it helps strengthen our rationale and demonstrate why our creative direction makes sense in context. Depending on the depth of your project, you might find this step valuable too.

Assignment 01 · continued

Research for your Design Brief

This stage is all about gathering visual ideas that will feed into the next step — mood-boarding — where you’ll distil your inspiration into creative direction for your Design Brief. Carry on with your own project, or use the mock scenario.

Using the mock scenario? Evergreen Wellness is the fictitious business introduced back in The Design Brief — the workshop dates, the audience, the location and the contact details are all in there.

Open the scenario ↗
Step 1: Set up 2x Pinterest boards
  • General Design Inspo
  • Project Research Board [Your Project Name] (or Evergreen Wellness Research if you’re using the mock scenario)

Tip: You can keep your boards secret if you prefer.

Step 2: Save 30+ Pins to your General Design Inspo board

Choose designs that really catch your eye to get this board started. These Pins reflect your personal preferences and are not tied to a specific project. This is the board you’ll continue adding to as you grow as a designer and train your eye.

For each Pin, ask yourself:

  • Why do I like this? (layout, colours, type, theme, composition?)
  • What vibe does it give me?
  • How could this style influence or inspire my own projects?
Step 3: Save 30+ Pins to your Project Research board

These Pins should connect directly to your chosen project (or Evergreen Wellness if using the mock scenario). They should reflect your project goals and your target audience’s preferences.

Look for inspiration that is more closely tied to your project needs. For example, if you’re designing a flyer, explore flyer designs to see different approaches to layout, hierarchy, and composition.

Think about:

  • Specific design formats (flyers, posters, Instagram posts, etc.) that align with your project deliverables
  • Examples of designs promoting similar events or industries: website design, social media feeds, photography
  • Imagery, themes, or colour palettes that feel ‘on-brand’ for your company, client, or Evergreen Wellness
  • A vibe that feels right for the target audience - put yourself in the audience’s shoes
What’s next

Once you’ve completed this step, we’ll use these boards to develop your Moodboard - a refined collection of ideas that will shape the creative direction of your Design Brief.

If you’re struggling to find inspiration, you can also refer to our agency’s Pinterest boards for a starting point. → View