Creative design is a complex process that can be applied from everything to making products to creating company logos. If you’re struggling with where to start, this graphic outlines the five basic steps.

创意设计的过程很复杂，不论是设计任何东西，比如从产品设计到公司商标设计，都是如此。如果你很难决定从哪儿开始，下面的图表概括了5个基本的步骤。

The graphic below, from creativity site Design Taxi, describes the basics of the design process from the perspective of creating a product for a company. However, the framework applies to most forms of commercial creativity. The steps break down as follows:

下面的图表，从创意网站的汽车设计以及公司产品设计的角度，描述了设计过程的基本步骤。然而，这一图表适用于大部分的商业创业设计。步骤详解如下：

1.Empathize: Learn about and understand your audience.

1.移情：了解设计产品的受众体。

2.Define: Narrow the problem you’re addressing to a simple statement.

2.明确：将你处理的问题明确为一个简单的陈述。

3.Ideate: Brainstorm solutions to your problem statement.

3.概念：用头脑风暴的方法解决你的陈述的问题。

4.Prototype: Create a first draft of your design that you can use to demonstrate your solution to a potential audience.

4.原型：制作一个设计草图用来向潜在客户描述自己的办法。

5.Test: Show your prototype to your sample audience, gauge reactions, and adapt as necessary.

5.测试：将你的原型设计展示给你的参考用户，评价他们的反应，如果需要调整就调整。

This is a very basic template, but nearly any type of creative can use it as a guide to make their product. Creatives often focus on the third step, which can be extremely hard to address if you’re not entirely clear on the problem, but the first two steps help you narrow that down. Meanwhile, the last two steps are necessary to refine your idea and turn into a product or design that’s ready to ship.

这是一个非常基本的模板，但是基本上所有的创意设计都可以使用这一指南来制造自己的产品。创新一般是集中在第三个步骤上，如果你不是完全清楚问题所在，那就非常难办了，但是前两个步骤可以帮助你缩小问题的范围。与此同时，最后的两个步骤对于明确你的概念并将其转换成产品或者成型的设计是十分必要的。