C H A P T E R  4

Creating the Visual Design

What's In This Chapter?

• Design Preparations
• Creating the Design
• Design Grids
• Conducting Design Reviews

This chapter takes you through the process of defining, creating, and presenting visual design compositions for SharePoint 2010. The visual designer takes on the role of defining and creating these documents. All of these tasks are part of step 5 within the design phase, as shown in Figure 4-1. The visual design compositions will be based on the branding requirements gathered from the previous chapter. The visual designer uses approved wireframes, the creative brief, and UX discovery briefs as a guide during the design process.

Figure 4-1. Step 5

Depending on the project scope, this process can be as simple as adding a logo to the site to as complex as creating a completely custom design with multiple iterations. Designers can choose from many different types of photo-editing software to create the visual design for SharePoint. Here I will be referencing Adobe Photoshop because it is one of the more popular software tools for creating designs for SharePoint. I'll spend a little time going over the tool before diving back into design grids.

This chapter will also cover the resourcing and review cycles needed to get the visual design approved. For larger projects, that could include multiple designers and information architects. It is critical that they are able to communicate and delegate tasks effectively.