Designing Designer Guiding Principles
Working in Traveloka as an illustrator is a challenging job. In this post, I’m going to share one of my projects that I think is quite challenging.
Last year, we started working on a project to create Designer Guiding Principles (DGP). I was assigned to research and create illustrations that represent the principles. Even though Traveloka has its own style, we wanted to explore something new for this project.
Designer Guiding Principles is created for designers in Traveloka. It does not merely function as a guide, but it shows how the ideal life of a designer should be.
We started the project by creating a persona. Persona will help set a standard on how the designer will see the principles. It could also help designers understand the context better by creating a relatable imagination.
Together with the working group, we defined what kind of persona we’d like to build. I created several questions to be exercised by the working group. The questions are created from the big question “If guiding principles is a human, what kind of person is he/she?”
The result is, we defined Designer Guiding Principles as a mature designer that everyone can count on, easy to reach, a remarkable thinker who likes to gain a lot of experience and is humble enough to listen to others’ opinions.
I shared the result with several designers in a casual discussion. I didn’t want it to seem like a serious meeting, I wanted them to enjoy the discussion. In this step, I made sure that the result fits our designers’ expectations. And it did! Interesting.
There’s also another insight that I wanted to discuss with the working group. Most of the designers think that the best way to communicate the guiding principles is with a more playful and not too serious concept. They are aware that it is a serious material that actually needs to be applied in their lives once it’s shared.
That insight brought two ideas that could help deliver the message. The first one is using a single or static illustration. The second one is through comic strips. Both of them has its own concern. If we are choosing comic strips, it means that we have to add storytelling to it. But if we choose to use a static illustration, will the message deliver well?
Instead of picking one type, we decide to use both types. The static illustration is used in principles that are easier to understand. The comic strips are used in principles that need relatable examples.
Then together with Bathara Putra, my fellow illustrator, we started exploring several styles that might fit our guiding principles persona.
We agreed to use vector style for the static illustration. The shape represents maturity in the persona we wanted to build. Face with no expression shows that empathy is not always seen from expression, it will show through actions as well.
For comic strips, we expected something not so comical like the usual big head, big eyes, and too much expression. We picked a style that has an almost realistic human proportion. This aligns well with our desired concept: Playful and not too serious.
We continued to the fundamental process, brainstorming for each principle through sketches. To create the same perception, we crafted two main characters in two different styles, and the colour palette helps unite them. After agreeing which sketch to use, the process continued in digital.
We came to a conclusion that the best way to deliver this Designer Guiding Principles is through an interactive book that is printed for each person and is limited to the designers in Traveloka. The book should be crafted with an interactive concept adapted from the principles which could also support the illustration.
Although we already thought that these two styles are the best ways to represent the guiding principles, please remember that illustration is not always literally drawn based on the context. Its main function is to share the idea of the context. That’s why to gain the best experience from this book, you need to read and understand the whole context because the elements of the book are tied to each other to create the main message.
Overall the process was quite long, but it was fun and I received good feedback from some of the designers.
That’s it for this post, hope you could find this useful! 😊
