I wonder if anyone has a system for coming up with good design ideas...I don't.
All I have is the awareness that I have 'off days' and 'on days'. Most of the time, when I struggle with a design at all, whether it's color or just the initial sketch, I'm having an 'off day'. Unfortunately, I'm usually too impatient to notice this...I don't like having to give up and take a break when I'm supposed to be in the middle of an epiphany. :[
It's only afterwards, when I've probably already posted the bad design to a public place, that my brain goes 'on' and figures out what I should have done all along in one fell swoop. And then I have to go back and re-do it, like I'm about to do now (I do have an essay I'm supposed to write but you don't understand this is what I should have gone with all along it's the ARMY OF FLOWERS and I have to draw it out before I forget...!!)
...Anyway, it's nice to have this knowledge, but I do wish the whole process was more under conscious control. The designs I currently want to redo were composed about...a little over a year ago??
It's crazy to have to wait that long for good quality...and it's not even always that long. Sometimes it's just a day. I'll probably realize in time that it can take even longer...but I don't have any other choice, it seems. The harder I work when I'm 'off', the more time I waste...all I can do is recognize that a design I'm not perfectly ecstatic about will probably improve later on, and wait till I'm 'on' again.