Database Design is the process of producing a detailed data model of a database. This logical data model contains all the needed logical and physical design choices and physical storage parameters needed to generate a design in a Data Definition Language, which can then be used to create a database.
A fully attributed data model contains detailed attributes for each entity. This may include the use of Relational Databases (tables and views), or Object Databases where the entities and relationships map directly to object classes and named relationships.