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Happy Monday! I’m back with another post, all about the steps you can follow to create the best product for your small or big business.

I have a small business called Do.dle, and I have finally released my first baby! This is still all very new to me, but one thing that I’ve learnt during this whole “business” journey is to just start and make mistakes as your go along. Making mistakes is inevitable so there is no point stressing about the small stuff. My main priority was to bring my vision to life and help the community that I have built to make planning and organisation easier for them.

In today’s post, I want to walk you guys through the steps I took to create the first of many products for Do.dle! I believe that the following 6 steps, were crucial in the success of my design process.

6 STEPS TO TAKE WHEN CREATING YOUR FIRST PRODUCT:

1. HAVE A BRAINSTORMING SESSION

Before you can get started, a long brainstorming session needs to take place. It is so essential to go into as much detail as you can because this will save you so much time during the design process. Take your time to decide exactly what you want your product to be, the goals you have and the steps you need to take.

Whilst I was brainstorming, I made a list of different stationery products that I use regularly as well as stationery products that are doing well right now.

This process can take days, months or even years but it is best to wait until you are 100{c442fc8ef3789ed23df439e52609827a13bf4892a25a9bdf30f84ba71f479458} sure before moving forward in the rest of the design process. In my case, it took around 3-4 months to decide exactly what I wanted my first product to be which was an A5 desk planner.

2. DO YOUR RESEARCH

If there is one stage that you need to take your time with its doing your research.

WHAT SHOULD YOU RESEARCH

• Your competitors
• Price points of similar products in your niche
• Printing or suppliers you may use
• Product marketing
• Your Target audience

The first step you should take is researching how well the product is doing in your niche or if your product is a new idea if it even exists. Next, research

IMPORTANCE OF DOING RESEARCH

1. Helps you identify how customers may react to your product
2. Gives you an idea of how much you could sell the product for

Essentially, the more research that you do the more knowledge you will have and the greater chance you have of eliminating risks that may occur.

3. CREATE A MOOD BOARD

WHAT IS A MOOD BOARD?

A mood board is a visual tool that illustrates all of your ideas for a concept or project. They help you to organise all of your inspiration consisting of pictures, text and even different object samples. Mood boards are usually physical or digital.

Pinterest will be your holy grail when creating your mood boards because you can literally find anything and everything to illustrate your vision! Once you have all of your pictures for your mood board, it’s time to assemble your mood board. I used Google Drive so I was able to share my board with other people if I needed to during the design process.

Here is a section of my mood board…

Creating a mood board is an important step in the design process because if you are hiring a graphic designer or illustrator, a mood board is a great way to communicate your ideas with them. It is also a great reference for all of the members of the design process sp that you are all on the same page at all times.

4. START THE DESIGN PROCESS

Let the fun begin!

If you enjoy the graphic design process you will most likely start designing your product yourself. However, if you are anything like me, your graphic design skills are quite mediocre and Canva is as far as my skills can stretch to, so you would most likely delegate the task out and hire a graphic designer and/ or an illustrator.

In my case, I made an outline on Canva of how I would like my product to look, including colours, patterns and the layout. Next, I made the design to go down the freelance route and look through MANY freelance websites. Once I found a handful of people, I talked through the project with a few graphic designers and finally picked the perfect fit for me.

SOME QUESTIONS TO ASK THE FREELANCER:

• Their quote
• Previous experience
• Example of past work
• Their website and/or shop

Hannah was amazing and so patient with me, I will definitely be using her again for my next project!

Usually, the design process can take a while but it is so worth it.

5. ORDER SAMPLES

Now that the stress is finally over, it is time to start ordering samples. Remember all of the research you did in step 2, it’s now time to order samples from the suppliers you shortlisted. Although the hard work is done, this step is still very important because it will either make or break all of your hard work.

6. PLACE YOUR ORDER!

You are nearly there! All you got to do now is order all of your stock. Once all of your samples have arrived you can pick the best one and order it in bulk! Prior to ordering I always like to email the supplier just to ask any outstanding questions I have as well as any discount they can offer me (you never know!)

And that’s it!

These were the exact steps I followed when I was releasing my first product! This is the finished product:

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