how does a design company operate? what strategies and processes are involved to go from the brief to final outcome? is it the same as university procedure? we get a brief we go away for a week come back with an idea, they say it is rubbish, then come back a week later with it resolved and done.

You left out the part where you sit with people looking over your shoulder as you redesign it into crap per their wishes and you have to pretend that you ''value their input/ideas'' .

It is similar but more hectic and you are often working on tons of things at once. Every once is a blue moon you create something you are proud of. Most of it gets ruined though. Sometime the turnaround is a day.

You pour your heart and soul in to a project for many days or weeks and have to accept that the client will rubbish all your hard work and may settle for a rubbish design produced by someone else.