Designer's point of view: The gist of the design proposal

Recently, I have seen several design proposals from the company, including the designer's interview work (in fact, in the case of personal designers, the display of the work is the same as the face of the indirect customer proposal process). The overall feeling is that the overall package level of the proposal has improved, especially in the visual aspect, which is pleasing, of course, the details of the above actually there can be improved.

Maybe you don't think clients are all like me. Then you are wrong, the only common point of different grades of customers is that they have seen a lot of proposals and recommendations, the real question is not whether your customers have enough insight, but with you to propose the peers are better. This is an eternal competition proposition, after all, whether for a mature large company, or a fledgling soldier, the design proposal is a magic weapon of communication, it depends on how we use it.

In order to make this topic more practical, here is my experience and observation, some content needs to distinguish different cultural background and customer psychology to choose, don't generalize.

1. Modalities of the proposal

The proposal is not limited to the way the two sides sit in the conference room with a PPT, indeed, this is the most popular way. Sometimes the proposal also includes a cocktail party with a client, an invitation letter, an email, an activity from a customer visit, and so on. In fact, the client is very smart, you do not have "formal proposal" when the customer is careful to observe you, so if your company and the team put the hope that the success of the proposal to the Conference rehearsal, the general will be very little results.

The design company will choose the proposal way: The mail work set, the online display, the High-level meeting recommendation, the Customer Communion meeting and so on;
The design team in the company will choose the proposal way: The Department communicates the meeting, the company internal Mass Mail, the company magazine, the staff activity and so on.

Please note that there is no essential difference between the ways of doing things, but the difference between the object's hobby and the situation, which requires participating in some experience design, a good work can not get positive feedback from all customers, so the proposal process is also a design process.

2. Content structure of the proposal

Let me say a few things about how to do a PowerPoint presentation in a meeting. After all, the advertising companies will play the stunt, we usually are rarely used.

Choose what kind of content structure, serve the recommended purpose of the proposal, first need to analyze the nature of the meeting and the background of the attendees, if there are more high-level, the number of pages of the presentation document can not be too much, and technical managers more than the case, your quantitative analysis of data should be placed in front of

A good proposal to attract people from the beginning of the first page, from a structural perspective, the introduction of personal or company on the first page is very backward, I personally suggest that the less water like this introduction the better-your company and the team if good enough, do not need to introduce, your company and the team if not, your introduction will only make people yawn. In the final section be sure to set up a problem to guide the next step of communication, or you will find that when you close the demo, you will be silent for 3-5 seconds, this time enough for the presence of the leader to go out to smoke.

3. Font control

Most of the presentation proposals are completely out of focus on typography, according to the content of your demo document to determine whether should use Verdana font, Chinese words, in bold is more ideal font, do not use what fat body or official script body, deformation of calligraphy fonts and advertising fonts are the most easy to feel shanzhai factors.

The control of font size needs to be based on the size of the venue if it is a small meeting (within 12 people) can choose about 24px, if it is a large meeting (more than 100 people), then your font size should not be less than 32px, if your picture is large, then reduce the number of characters, but do not change the font size.

The spacing between characters and line spacing is also important, the minimum line is not recommended below the font size/3, if you choose English title, then your initials please remember capitalization ...

4. Graphics control

Picture design is a learning, if you do not have good material and experience, then try to keep your picture simple and clear. A picture can only explain a topic, even the data and information table is the case, too much information will give people no focus, once your proposal process has no focus, the audience will be distracted.

If the graphic is not through photo material, should keep the whole consistent, and unified geometry bounding box (rectangle, circle, etc.), in any case, the picture if more than 3, should ensure that their overall structure reasonable, balanced layout, horizontal tile is a good idea. You want to ask: if I want to arrange the picture into a fish eye effect good? OK, but you have to redesign the entire page to match your arrangement and make the entire page a "picture."

5. Dynamic better than static

Set the key points in the demo process, such as you think a phase is a transition, you can add some animation effects in this page presentation document, we all know that too much animation effect is scary, because the visual loss of the center of gravity. So we can focus on the page transition effects, such as the global unification of an animation effect, will be more attractive than the simple cut screen, the demo document itself is a work, the details of the dynamic is always more attractive than static.

You can also insert some video and music into your document, if, I say, if, the best thing is that your demo is a whole video, it's easiest to understand. If you've seen the demoreel of some special effects companies, you'll find a lot of inspiration.

6. Data and stories

If you want to promote an idea that data and stories are more feasible ways, data makes people feel real, objective, describe the performance, ability, reputation, when the data often play the impeccable role, and the story is more sentimental, unreal, let people into the feelings, describe a principle, method and values, can play a very good effect.

In the program demo, the work itself is often just a surface, more importantly, through the analysis of the data and the narrative of the story to make the whole project appear to be worth the price, the data and story is to tell you "why you choose my Design", "Why I Will Design", "If you do not choose this design will lose what" the best evidence.

7. Scenario of the proposal

Projected area, seat placement, microphone volume, notebook battery endurance, animation speed, audience mood, proposal time ..... All this constituted the specific situation of the proposal.

So before the presentation of the proposal, the person who will make the presentation should quickly analyze the situation on the spot, enter a profiler role, if you find some problems, should adjust your presentation proposal in time, for example, you find that the leader does not like red things, you should quickly replace the background color of the proposal document, This is the experience of some of the proposals.

Right, and your personal situation--when you're a speaker in a design proposal, there are three things you should be prepared for: a MacBook laptop, a well-designed watch, a beautifully designed business card. Please do not ask me why, ask this visualization of the industry.