Zack Sicard
Hand crafting award winning design experiences
ABOUT
Zachary Sicard is a designer, illustrator and art director with 15 years of experience. Zack’s career extends from small studios in Boston to extensive freelance work and now as in-house design lead. When he is not creating magic on the computer or paper you can find him surfing, building motorcycles, hiking, and spending quality time with his family on the north shore. Learn more below.
Design Principles and Process
Below are a few key principles that I follow daily.
They require you to be mindful of content.
Breaking the rules is fun too!
REPETITION
Reduce learning
Eliminate confusion
HIERARCHY
Bigger is good
Bold is better
CONTRAST
The "pop factor" lets
make this interesting
DOMINANCE
Outshine your competition, stand out
BALANCE
Symmetrical is clean
Asymmetrical is fun
How I work within a team:
1. Finding the why?
The pre-creative phase is all about setting realistic goals and solving the "why?" What is the problem? What is this for? Along with research (observations, surveys, interviews) and discovery the first phase of my process is also defining workflows, timelines, and ultimately, working together to understand the user needs.
2. The creative journey
After carefully gathering all the pieces we start the creative phase. First, the creative journey starts with; brainstorms, thumbnails, sketches, mapping, concept boards and color boards. Second, refining designs, copy, and defining assets like photography and illustrations bring the project to life. At this point customer feedback and internal reviews are vital. Last, mid to high fidelity executions, functionality tests, interaction design and usability tests are conducted to validate the project is still solving the problem.
3. Defining the work
Working closely with the development team to flesh out high fidelity designs. At this point, branding is well established along with visual details to define the surface. Communication through annotations speed production and user testing provides the feedback to move on.
4. Wrap it up
Does my customer have everything they need? We continue to test and review. Collaboration with the development team is also continued, making sure every line of copy, code, and interaction is working perfectly. The goal here is to meet the business needs, fulfill the deadline, and work together to optimize a perfect experience.