Just this week I was reading ISTD’s excellent publication Typographic Writing which has a collection of essays on design from many various sources and all gathered from thirty years of their own TypoGraphic journal. Early on in the book is text from corporate identity pioneer/poster genuis F H K Henrion which was the concluding talk to the 16th International Congress on Education in Letter-forms in 1973, actually held here in Copenhagen. In the text he expands on Adrian Frutiger’s rules for creating letter-forms to all design problem solving. What he says is very simple and he considers it the sequence for designing anything. So it’s pretty useful then. Here you go:

1. State the objective to be achieved
2. Analyse the situation
3. Make a list of requirements and the criterea
4. Put the list of these requirements into a priority order and you define the rules of the game

There you go. Enjoy applying those as you work today.