When deciding on a creative brief format that best meets the needs of your team or organization, remember that the final document should be specific and, ideally, brief. Sylvia Harris, a New York-based information design strategist, points out, “Clients don’t have time to wade through lengthy briefs and most designers are visual and would prefer not to read long,...
Although well-intentioned, marketers new to the creative development process will frequently provide the creative team with an overly directive brief, one which leaves little room for actual creativity. Successful creative briefs however, while clearly stating the business goals of the project, strike a tone of openness and collaboration with regard to creative direction. Michael Hunter, a veteran marketer at...
As creative veterans will tell you, starting a project without a creative brief is like starting a road trip without a destination or a map. Creative briefs are an essential tool for gathering pertinent information, setting clear objectives, and aligning expectations. Since briefs provide a common ground for managing creative projects and evaluating their success, it’s critical that you...
Get a group of designers talking and eventually you will hear the complaint that “clients don’t understand design.” In the eyes of many designers, this leads to unreasonable and downright ugly requests regarding colors, logos, copy, and anything else that will ruin their perfectly good designs. While I am sympathetic to this lament it reflects two problems. The first...
A quick glance at graphic design job ads on Monster will teach you that, at the entry-level, there is little difference between the role of Graphic Designer and Production Artist. Aside from the fact that most of the responsibilities involve creating sales collateral, client inserts, and applying logos to various things — in other words, “designing” within predetermined formats...
The traditional design portfolio, of whatever standard or eccentric design, is literally “dead” – static, immobile, lifeless. Containing as it does “samples,” of our work, it is at best a showroom and, at worst, a graveyard. At the risk of seeming naive, I assume that no one likes submitting a portfolio for review without being able to present its...
This past Sunday in the Washington Post there was a remarkable article about Joshua Bell playing for change in the Washington Metro. He played for about 45 minutes. 1,097 walk past him. 20 or so gave him money. A whopping 7 people actually stopped to listen. There are a lot of lessons to be drawn from this experiment –...
It seems like every time I ask an established creative professional if they have any advice for the up-and-comers, they tell me, “Take whatever work comes your way. You never know where it’s going to lead.” I believe they offer this advice because, as the Clash used to say, “The future is unwritten.” The future in which you pursue...
Pretty much everything that someone does as a designer is done at the behest of marketing. Logos, advertisements, brochures, catalogues, packaging, and websites all aim to differentiate, promote, or otherwise “market” a product or service. And yet, as one graphic designer told me, “Marketing people don’t get creatives and vice versa.” At a basic level, marketers are not too...
When you hit the streets as a freshly minted designer or creative professional of whatever flavor, you generally have two choices: go freelance or get a job at an established studio or agency. The problem on the freelance side is that it’s hard to get started because building a client base takes time. On the studio/agency side, getting in...
