How Important is the Creative Brief?

When you concept, do you read the creative brief thoroughly? Or do you simplify the assignment in your head and go from there? For me, the more info, the more insight, the more parameters I have, the better. It lets me know when I've found a good answer; if it satisfies the brief. But in many cases, I find the brief to lack insight or true creative direction. If I get a brief at all. What are your thoughts. Any Creative Brief pet peeves? How often do you get an amazing brief?

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Permalink Reply by Steve McNamara on September 16, 2008 at 11:59am

Hi Tucker:

In my view a great creative brief is requisite to brilliant and effective work. I’ve been fortunate enough to have helped write, as well as to have received, hundreds of superb creative briefs - briefs that are organized, detailed and rich with insight.

Here’s an article that might help you get a better brief:

http://www.adcracker.com/brief/10-tips-to-better-creative-briefs.htm

Cordially,

Steve

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Permalink Reply by philip chudy on September 16, 2008 at 2:47pm

A lot of the time, as a photographer it seems one is almost tasked not take a brief too literally. But there is a sense in which one should really echo the brief to the client/art director before the job commences to make sure one is on the right track.
Reality (or the faux reality which is what the photo image reveals in these days of digital post production) still has its own rules. One is employed as a photographer to exploit the 'believability' of a photograph. As such one is expected to have an advanced capacity to pre-visualize a final visual scenario. This capacity may be the result of years of learning about photographic reality, which the parties who created the brief may or may not share. Simple stuff such as perspective is often hard to take into account when designing a layout. One is expected to make it work according to the brief as well as fits within the rules of photographic reality.
One often receives an entirely non visual brief (ie man has just found out that his wife left him and he is hungry for a cookie) and it is never going to be possible to fulfill this without extensive copy support. Frequently the brief is for the photo to be wallpaper, which is supposed to support/decorate an intellectual or design ‘concept’ and yet the it is rare that the precise role of the photo is defined in advance.
The choice of a photographer is often considered to be a fait accompli choice of a ‘style/visual solution’ and it is rare that one is expected to actually tailor a style for a specific assignment. The brief in that sense is not much more than – ‘get Joe and ask him to do the same blue effect he did on that other shot with this one’. That said, it can be much more productive to produce images which are a creative synthesis of both the photographer and the art directors, rather just ‘do your thing’ with this layout. Images created by committee are usually bland but I think that cooperation in a small team can often add up to more than the sum of the individual creative brains employed.

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Permalink Reply by R. Richard Hobbs on September 17, 2008 at 7:58am

...and the problem sometimes for below the line people like moi (I am a location scout / location manager), unless I, too, have been involved in the concepting (a rarity) is by the time I get wind of any of it it's been "interpreted" by the photographer / director and /or producer or whoever I am answering to and indeed, I must "interpret" for myself. Wacky business this we work in ;)

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Permalink Reply by Lena K on September 17, 2008 at 6:36pm

I think it starts from the top. Who is sitting in front of that particular client, taking notes, questioning their company history, practices etc. That project manager needs to be somewhat of a psyco-analyzer. Communicating on that level takes a person that is able to run on intuition and logic at the same time.

The difference between order takers and real creative's is what most clients are looking for. Are you just going to take their requests...write them up in a brief and expect your creative dep't. to execute just that. Or is your creative dep't going to go a few steps further and develop concepts that crack the client expectations that go way beyond that little creative brief? Most often, when a client is enlightened on possibilities, he or she will take that into consideration... your envelope is pushed and you execute good, meaningful creative work.

Iv had creative briefs handed to me with just the client name, URL, project due date and nothing else. Talk about running with a blindfold. You see young, fresh out of school kids sitting in AE positions. They come cheap and entry level. They are responsible to translate ideas to their creative depts. and most often have no clue what the client i really in need of.

Agencies are responsible for their clientele, like mothers are responsible for their children. Understanding their needs, teaching them right from wrong and nurturing them through the good and bad. Can a young entry level individual do that?

I'm speaking from my own exp. Most agencies I've worked with have fresh talent, but that fresh talent has no experience when it comes to reading the client or enlightening the client with possible solutions to their advertising needs. Shit hits the fan when the brief is written up, handed off to a creative director, handed down to an art director, handed down to a graphic designer.... and the message isn't clear. Its like playing telephone.

The top creative's NEED to be in those client meetings before the briefs are trickled down to other departments. AE's and project managers are not creative's, nor can they translate ideas into reality like creative's can, unless you have a superstar Acct rep. on your hands that has creative history.

Iv had some shitty creative briefs given to me. I executed them to my best ability from the info that was given + introduced a few extra concepts that had nothing to do with that brief. Plenty of times got blamed for not meeting the clients needs (before the client even saw the final mockups). Project managers who think they are ART Director are my biggest pet peeves.