personally? I plan an entire project out. Whatever it is, I go through this process:
1. What is my goal? - What am I attempting to accomplish.. Sometimes it is something like "To make a game with PHP" or "To scare small children on halloween".
2. What medium is best for this? - In my other examples, PHP and photoshop for the game and halloween supplies and crafty things, pumpkins, and such for freaking out kids.
3. Think up a concept. - I'm not gonna keep going with the php game cause thats obvious, this year, I am going to surprise kids, so surprise is the concept.
4. What things can I have in this project that meet the concept? - this is brainstorming, some things for halloween are, a snowman stack of scary carved pumpkins and myself immitating a chair with a bowl of candy on it and a sign that reads "Please take some candy, I will be right back" (genius)
5. Finalize the design. - obvious.
6. Stage 2 of finalize design. - This is where I would psuedocode a coded design, draw interface ideas out, and create mock screens to work from... I make everything work on paper first. I also might do some proof of concepts if need be.
7. Implimentation. - At this point, I have a clear plan and goal, and this takes no time at all. Having worked out all the conceptual bugs, the programming bugs are all that are left, not having to decide which is broken means faster debugging.
8. Launch.
I follow this same basic formula for all my art, web-sites, and such.... but it really isn't this formal... I just work that way.
This is sort of, an after thought about what I do naturally.
I hope some of that helps.
1. What is my goal? - What am I attempting to accomplish.. Sometimes it is something like "To make a game with PHP" or "To scare small children on halloween".
2. What medium is best for this? - In my other examples, PHP and photoshop for the game and halloween supplies and crafty things, pumpkins, and such for freaking out kids.
3. Think up a concept. - I'm not gonna keep going with the php game cause thats obvious, this year, I am going to surprise kids, so surprise is the concept.
4. What things can I have in this project that meet the concept? - this is brainstorming, some things for halloween are, a snowman stack of scary carved pumpkins and myself immitating a chair with a bowl of candy on it and a sign that reads "Please take some candy, I will be right back" (genius)
5. Finalize the design. - obvious.
6. Stage 2 of finalize design. - This is where I would psuedocode a coded design, draw interface ideas out, and create mock screens to work from... I make everything work on paper first. I also might do some proof of concepts if need be.
7. Implimentation. - At this point, I have a clear plan and goal, and this takes no time at all. Having worked out all the conceptual bugs, the programming bugs are all that are left, not having to decide which is broken means faster debugging.
8. Launch.
I follow this same basic formula for all my art, web-sites, and such.... but it really isn't this formal... I just work that way.
This is sort of, an after thought about what I do naturally.
I hope some of that helps.