On art direction

There are hundreds if not thousands different ways to design anything. Without proper art direction; if you're someone like me I would try to different font combinations for a given project. There is no problem with that at all to be honest, but the problem comes when you don't know the feeling you are trying to invoke in a user upon viewing that design most importantly for the first time and subsequent times as well.

One of the easiest way for one to come up with a direction is to associate that brand with adjectives you want to be known for. For example you could say upon viewing the design you want to invoke a feeling of calmness, friendliness, security and trust in a user. With that in mind you could base your decisions on those traits; constantly asking yourself after every step whether or not it is inline with the target traits.

I have been stuck on a single project for as long as I can remember simply because I had no clear goals of the direction for the design. I have been trying multiple font combinations and layouts without stopping to ask myself why I was making those calls.

Now that I have set those directions, it makes it much easier for me to filter out a lot designs not because they don't look good but because it doesn't fit the brand.