1 Adding A Design Process Greg Douglas @thegregdouglas #WCOC #WPDesignprocess arcctrl.com/designprocess 

Hi, I’m Greg and I am the co-founder of ARC(CTRL). We create powerful applications and plugins to help designers and developers produce their greatest work possible. I also co-organize Hollywood WordPress. arcctrl.com hollywoodwp.com Greg Douglas @thegregdouglas #WCOC #WPDesignprocess arcctrl.com/designprocess 

3 Discover Design Develop Deliver 

4 Discover Design Develop Deliver WHY? WHY? 

5 

6 Stop Trying To Be A Unicorn 

7 Maybe It’s Time To Specialize 

8 Generalist Designer Designers that are wearing all the hats at their company and selling their design work as a service. A lot of child- theming going on at this level (Mostly these websites are built for the small business space) 

9 Pitfalls of Staying A Generalist There is little money in this space You will be spread too thin if you are working alone Working with small business clients at very low price points will bite you in the ass as you try to scale… unless of course you want to pivot your design business into a website maintenance business 

10 Specialist Designer The WP designers that transcend the small business space by going through the dip of being a generalist for a year or two but intentionally growing into a specialist g 

11 Leveling Up To Specialist Elevate your business, sales and marketing acumen to sell larger business clients Hire employees or consultants to do production work for you Partner with a developer who owns their own consulting firm to court larger clients together Take a full time design job for a large agency or corporation that uses WP and values having a designer that is separate from the developer 

12 Choosing To Specialize As A WP Designer 

13 UI Design is The Wheel To stay competitive as a modern designer you will need to bring more value to the table then just good UI skills. 

14 Design Specialist To Do List 1. Build some WP websites by yourself even if your long term goal is to focus on the design portion 2. Learn through the dip, take courses, and do self study on general WP knowledge 3. Attend WP meetups in your area, create alliances with developers, so you can play the role of designer on larger projects that your new team will bid on together NOTE Teaming up with others helps you bill more hours at a premium rate so ultimately both you and your development partners can make more money 

15 What is the Discovery/ Design Phase 

16 Discover Design Develop Deliver 

17 Discover Design Develop Deliver 

18 Tools of A Design Specialist 

19 WordPress Tools That Help You Offer/Sell Higher Value Solutions Advanced Custom Fields Buddy Press WooCommerce Easy Digital Downloads Gravity Forms Hooking into the WP-API and Other advanced development practices 

UX/UI Trade Tools To Help You Offer More In The Discover & Design Phase Design Questionnaire User Personas With User Scenarios Vision/Project Board Flow Chart Style Guide Wireframes 

Design Tool Resources Creative Market Design Cuts Adobe Design Inspiration Webdesigner Depot Canva Design School Behance UX For The Masses Additional Resources UX Prototyping Resources Axure Balsamiq Omnigraffle Style Guide/Brand Guidelines Issuu (Search: Brand Guidelines) ID - Identity Designed SG-90 Style Guide Creator Plugin arcctrl.com/designprocess 

Example of Putting Our Design Tools Together exclusive.tylerdigital.com premiuminteractive.com/serenity 

THANK YOU! Greg Douglas [email protected] Greg Douglas @thegregdouglas #WCOC #WPDesignprocess arcctrl.com/designprocess 

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