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Friday
12Feb2010

How to get the best work from your agency or graphic design team; Part 5

Planning Your Creative Briefing Meeting

The creative briefing meeting opens the design development process. When we present the brief, we have the opportunity to emphasize and expand upon select communications objectives. We can highlight particularly important product features, messages, and brand values. We can nuance our creative team’s understanding of our target audiences, discuss our consumer-research methods, and address logistical issues or concerns that have arisen in the past.

Process your brief internally first.

If the marketing buck does not absolutely stop at your desk–if you have a boss or CEO who insists on signing off on marketing projects before they are implemented–make sure that you complete your creative brief’s internal approvals process prior to delivering it to your creative team. Waiting to show your boss design deliverables while they are in the developmental stage could prove catastrophic. Your boss may not grasp how the products reflect the goals, objectives, and strategy that have driven their development.

The chances that your boss reflects your target audience are probably slim to none, so design deliverables are unlikely to resonate. Your boss may make the classic mistake–substituting her aesthetic for the target audiences’. She may demand that you go back to square one or make changes that are expensive and off-strategy. When this happens, it is usually because the proper groundwork has not been laid, and the strategy has not been sufficiently processed inside the organization before it has been delivered to the agency or designer.

Deliver the brief in advance.

I have learned that it is a good idea to deliver the written brief three to four days in advance of the briefing meeting. Because creative teams often meet before your briefing to identify questions or concerns that may be prompted by their review of your written document, advance delivery facilitates your team’s review of the brief. No matter how good a brief is, it cannot help but be predicated on previous experience and assumptions that may require further clarification.

Don’t be surprised if your brief or strategy is questioned. First-rate creatives often push back some on strategy, channel selections, media choice, or marketplace assumptions. That’s a good thing because it requires us to defend our strategy formulation. Probing can reveal weaknesses in strategy, prompting reconsideration or a modified approach. It is always better to surface flaws early.

Make a companion presentation.

I always prepare and deliver a companion presentation to my creative brief. In addition to organizing my thinking in advance and ensuring that I make the meeting productive, the presentation facilitates my ability to take everyone through the art (photography, illustrations, charts, forms, etc.) and copy that will be used in the project.

Any design project is comprised of visual counterpoint between images and text. It is vital to discuss what we think those images that we plan on using say or don’t say. It has occasionally been my experience that different people do not infer the same message or have the same emotional experience from the same image. Reviewing images and discussing message and experience brings people together who have various degrees of visual and cultural literacy. What you or I might think is clear or iconic might be completely missed by someone else. As images become increasingly important and target audiences become increasingly culturally and socially diverse, we have to implement processes that help us avoid making mistakes. This is especially important for those of us who work in heterogeneous metropolitan markets.

Facilitate art review.

In practical terms, too, images require prioritization and critical review. For example, we may want to use a particular image in a way that isn’t feasible. The image may say something vital, but its resolution may be insufficient. There may be some technical issues with an image that you don’t see, but your art director or designer flags such as poor focus, noise, or chromatic aberrations. Your design products can’t be any better than the quality of art comprising them.

To facilitate the image review, when I make an image slide for my briefing presentation, I include the following information about the image: people in the image; size of image in pixels, i.e. 4367 px X 2911 px; permissions information (licensing); name of photographer; and caption information. Because intellectual property issues are increasingly thorny, if the photo has been licensed through a stock company, I include license information.

If we’ve done a good job developing and delivering the creative brief, chances are that the design development process will yield products that are not only visually compelling, but that are on-strategy as well. This is a lot easier said than done. Creating a messaging-design-channel gestalt where each component adds value and reinforces the other challenges the most skillful and experienced among us.

Friday
05Feb2010

How to get the best work from your agency or graphic design team; Part 4

How to develop and give creative direction.

Let’s address timing first. When should creative direction be delivered? Many people provide creative direction during the design development process as opposed to before it begins. In my experience, this is problematic.

The best creative directors I know give robust and clear direction before design development begins because they want their creatives aligned. They want work to emerge from fresh information and sound strategy.

Before the design development process begins, minds are open. As client, we are in a position to set the agenda and focus the conversation. Since work hasn’t commenced, nobody has developed any attachments to particular directions or concepts.

Front-loading the process disables assumptions, draws distinctions, and sparks insights.

Driving a winning creative process isn’t like driving a car.

George Carlin wittily observed, “Ever notice that anyone going slower than you is an idiot, but anyone going faster is a maniac?”

When we’re driving, most of us think that our judgment is the only correct judgment. Unfortunately, a lot of us think that giving creative direction is akin to driving. We think that giving direction is a real-time exercise. “Slow down. Turn left. Take the next right onto the service road.” 

Imagine that you run a long-haul trucking company. Are you likely to instruct your truck driver to deliver his load to a particular destination, or are you going withhold the address, climb up into the shotgun seat, and commence giving directions on a piecemeal basis? This would be an hilarious scenario if it were not so common and so counterproductive in developing good creative work.

Some people think they need to see conceptual design drafts before they can judge whether they like the concept and how it might be executed. This is one legitimate way to work, however it tends to start things off on a negative foot. When most people are asked for feedback, what they hear is “Tell me how this could be better” or “What’s wrong with this.” This tends to drive the conversation and the dynamic to a negative place.

It’s much more constructive to give robust direction early, then choose among options that are right. This focuses the conversation on what’s working and it also helps build a positive and constructive atmosphere within which your creatives are likely to give you better work. Your chances of getting a number of good, on-strategy options goes up when you give creative direction early.

If you find yourself giving strategy direction once the process is underway, it might be a sign that your briefing process needs work. This is not to say that the creative direction process isn’t ongoing; it happens throughout the development process. What takes place once creative development is underway is primarily winnowing and suggestions to develop particular ideas further. If the briefing process is working, we’re choosing among options that are all more or less on strategy. We’re not trying to get the process on-strategy.

How to develop an effective creative brief.

Good creative direction results from a disciplined marketing methodology, the product of which is a creative brief document that clients provide to their agency or design team before the design development process begins.

If you have a style guide, make sure that you provide it before the design development process begins, as well. Your style guide will save your design team a lot of time and, presumably, will save you a lot of money.

A good creative brief answers both strategic and practical questions in clear and simple terms:

  1. How will creative products help achieve business goals?
  2. What are your communication goals and objectives?
  3. What specific concerns or information – e.g. contemporary vs. classical look, legibility, brand personality, brand values, etc. – should be considered in design development?
  4. What behavioral outcome(s) is the product intended to accomplish?
  5. Who are the target audiences? What is their gender, age, education, lifestyle, economic status, social status, marital status, parental status? What is their past and projected relationship to the products or services being marketed?
  6. How will the creative product(s) be used by the target audiences?
  7. How will the creative product(s) be distributed? If the design deliverable(s) will be used across multiple channels, make sure the design team knows this before the design development process begins.
  8. What is the manufacturing (printing, web design, etc.) budget?
  9. What is the timetable for manufacture/implementation and distribution?
Thursday
04Feb2010

How to get the best work from your agency or graphic design team; Part 3

Make clear agreements.

Design professionals do their best work when they can set distractions and concerns aside to focus on producing work. Settling timetable and financial terms early helps keep these things from becoming distractions later.  Clear agreements help create the conditions for a fruitful design development process.

The old saw, “Good fences make for good neighbors,” is sound advice. Clear, specific, and unambiguous agreements that govern the design and production process help prevent misunderstandings and the arguments and resentment that can ensue from them.

Nobody likes to borrow trouble, especially at the inception of a project. It can feel awkward to discuss challenges or issues that may arise during a project, but it is what responsible partners do. Getting over an imagined skirmish is much easier than healing the wounds from the real thing.

When particulars about scope of work and terms of service are left unaddressed, both parties are likely to advocate resolutions that are least costly and easiest for them. When projects go awry, somebody usually loses out. Given the up-down relationship dynamics between client and agency/design firm–it is often the agency/design firm that takes the loss. These things become an issue when nobody has planned for them, so plan for them. I make it a practice to create contingency lines in my budget so that I have some room to adjust fees upward if I think it’s the right thing to do.

Keep your agreements fresh, especially in established, long-term working relationships. The most fractious arguments that I’ve witnessed have occurred between people who both assume that a body of agreements has evolved over time that govern every project. Since some projects are much more straightforward than others, it’s a good idea to assess the relative ease or difficulty of a project before you discuss it with your design team. The more complex the assignment is, the more likely it is that you need to craft a specific project agreement.

If a resolution to a disagreement is unfair, don’t expect your design team or agency to feel good about the resolution or about you. Getting good creative products from your designers isn’t usually something that happens inside one project or one meeting; it happens over the period that describes the temporal arc of your relationship. Don’t forget that the fees you pay are not just for specific projects, they are also the means by which you maintain the relationship.

The most important variable you will negotiate concerns the number of development rounds you can expect over the project’s life. Establish the number of development and revision rounds that are included within project fees in advance. Agree on costs of additional development rounds, if necessary. 

Setting terms before a project begins helps ensure that disagreements or misunderstandings won’t create hard feelings later.  Arguing about process, budget, timetable, etc. during the design development process steals focus from creating an effective final product. Acrimony sucks the joy right out of the project for those who are doing the work. It is the very rare creative who crafts wonderful design projects in an atmosphere of resentment.

Wednesday
03Feb2010

How to get the best work from your agency or graphic design team; Part 2

Understanding creatives.

Imagination and creativity are the currency of our time. Invaluable and precious, that currency is the ability to source fresh, elegant, and beautiful solutions. One can’t research their way into something new. As Henry Ford once remarked, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” So, if you value the ability to move from the obvious into the realm of the unexpected, the realm of surprise and delight, cultivate your understanding of and ability to work with creatives.

I write from experience. When I was younger I made every mistake in the book. I behaved as the biggest jerk on the planet. I have whined, wheedled, complained, yelled, threatened, pontificated, condescended, and patronized my way through relationships with creatives. Why some of the most talented people in the world chose to endure my infantile, insecure, and arrogant demeanors remains one of the great mysteries I confront.

Having made more mistakes than most of my friends and colleagues - even when taken as a group - I’ve learned a few things and, by way of some small atonement, I want to share some of the lessons I’ve learned. While I may have not always been a great client, I have always loved and respected creatives. I love working with them. And I thrive on the wonderful product that emerges from working with them.

For the purposes of these posts, let me define what I mean by creatives. I’m referring to those people whose work products singly or collaboratively comprise our communications products: graphic designers, copywriters, photographers, illustrators, videographers, models, costume designers, composers, musicians, conductors, scriptwriters, lighting designers, audio designers, art directors, and creative directors. Forgive me for any omissions since I’m sure there are some.

Creatives are people. Like you and me, they respond well to people who are skilled at managing performance, giving clear direction, and who treat them with respect and warmth. They do not respond well to being treated as just another vendor who can easily be replaced - and probably at a lower cost. They also don’t respond well to people who think writing big checks will somehow make up for coercive or abusive behavior.

We’re all fighting myths perpetuated by television like that episode in Mad Men when a brilliant idea emerged five minutes before a meeting.  These myths belie the truth that big ideas don’t usually come from someone being struck by insight-lightning. In the real world, the best ideas emerge from a sound work process where responses to creative direction are diligently explored and winnowed down so that the best ideas can be further developed.

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, there are still plenty of people out there who cling to their imagination’s portrayal of the tortured artist going home every night to their fire-warmed, candlelit garret to read Yeats or Kierkegaard while drinking absinthe into the wee hours. While there are creatives like this, most of them left this period behind when the rest of us did. Yes, creatives are different from many other people, but they are not zebras living among horses. Nobody does creatives any favors by romanticizing who they are. Be real with them and you will build a much stronger and more productive relationship with them.

Still, creatives aren’t accountants, network administrators, lawyers, human resources staff, etc. They are fiercely individual even when that fierceness is masked by a soft-spoken, deferential demeanor. They are highly individuated, sometimes quirky, and often scornful of convention. Ironically, many of the most talented are tentative and insecure. Their processes aren’t linear and many of them can’t explain how or why they arrived at solutions they create, although my experience is that the most articulate creatives rise to the top. If like me, you value Socratic dialogues, don’t expect creatives to respond well. Most are fantastically well-equipped to create wonderful work but less well-equipped to defend it.

Most creatives work for inner satisfaction, not extrinsic rewards. Usually, motivating them is not a problem since they love their work. The challenge is working with them in a way that doesn’t de-motivate them. One of the best pieces of advice I can give you is to trust the development process once you have clearly established your creative objectives. Try to reserve judgment until everything is on the table. Let the process work through.

One of the biggest differences between creatives and the average working stiff is that most creatives I know work from a sense of vocation. They feel called to their work. They don’t slog off to work; they run towards their day. It is precisely because many of them feel they don’t have a choice but to do what they do that they feel particularly vexed by clients who don’t treat them right, regardless of whether they’re clueless, mean-spirited, or disrespectful. In spite of their efforts to not take their work personally, it’s very difficult not to. It is just the nature of creative work and the extent to which subjective decisions are necessary and important.

Perhaps more than most of us, creatives feel a strong desire to please those for whom they work. They are tasked with harmonizing functionality, beauty, and meaning. It never ceases to amaze me that they mostly succeed at their attempts to do so. The fact that they are often successful shouldn’t diminish anyone’s estimation of how very difficult it is accomplish this. When they fail, as all of us do on occasion, their attempts to succeed should be accorded respect, not disparagement. Mountain climbers sometimes perish on the mountains they choose to climb. When tragedy strikes, most people would never think of responding derisively or of scoffing. For reasons that evade me altogether, some people respond to a creative fall with scorn or contempt. Needless to say, people like this should be kept as far away from creative enterprises as it is possible to get them.

For most creatives, failure is a soul-stealing experience not unlike that resulting from the “Dementor’s kiss” as described in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books. It is very difficult for many good creatives to take a second, third, or fourth sally at a difficult creative problem. This is not because they are overly sensitive or because they have egos like eggshells. It is because most creatives know that the best ideas come early and that if a solution has not emerged early, it is increasingly difficult to craft a solution the longer the design process drags on.

Smart creatives I know are good at understanding that clients are not always going to give feedback in the most effective way. They coach their teams to approach work strategically, to avoid being too sensitive, and not to let their egos get bruised when the feedback process is less than ideal.

Working effectively with creatives is not unlike working effectively with anyone else. To some extent, treating them as if they were exotic and different is counterproductive, but understanding how they are different can make one more productive. We all feel special. We all feel that we are unique and most of us hope that our uniqueness is not only visible, but valued. I never cease to be amazed at how much better work product is when it is delivered by someone who feels valued, trusted, and secure. Conversely, setting a disinterested or overly tough tone when working with your creatives can spook the best ideas right out of someone’s head.

Don’t be surprised if your creative team is just as nervous or scared by the breakthrough idea as you might be. Do everything you can to get those breakthrough options on the table and even if you must pass on them for whatever reasons, embrace their appearance with joy and enthusiasm when they do appear. In a world where most people choose faster horses, breakthrough ideas can take you further faster than you might imagine.

Next: Part 3: Making agreements that make for better creative.

Tuesday
02Feb2010

How to get the best work from your agency or graphic design team.

Part 1: How to get the best work from your agency or graphic design team 

Of all the aspects of my career over the years, I love working with artists the most, whether it has been as a musical or theatrical collaborator, a commissioner, a producer, a creative director, or an art director. Playing a role in bringing something fresh and new into the world is a special experience - one that I wish everyone could have.

Working effectively with creative personnel is something that I’ve been interested in writing about for quite some time. Not everyone knows how to collaborate with and support creatives so that they will produce their very best work. In fact, the way that some people work with creatives hurts work quality as opposed to facilitating it. Some folks will never know how good their creative product might have turned out if they had known how to get the best from their creative team. As it is, they can only look at the products that exist and wonder what might have been.

Frankly, a lot of the poor marketing and branding campaigns that I see in all likelihood started out with much better ideas and more compelling executional drafts, but they were left bleeding in a ditch somewhere along the way.

When mediocre branding or dulled-down creative fails to produce results, it’s not that branding, communications, and design strategies don’t work. These strategies succeed or fail in execution. Executing well is increasingly harder to do. With the advent of new media, literally everyone has access to communication tools and contrary to what you might read in blogs and discussion forums, gifted amateurs with one or two good ideas are not going to revolutionize communications effectiveness. They may very well get lucky a time or two, but building creative that is on strategy over the long haul requires experience, training, skill, discipline, research, passion, and the ability to facilitate the productivity of other gifted people.

I’m hoping that this series of posts will help improve both your and your organization’s ability to produce effective and compelling communications tools. Sometimes we forget that until a consumer or audience member has a direct experience with our product, their behaviors are governed by what we communicate and how we communicate. Increasingly, words are less important, and images - both still and moving - are where the action is. So learning how to embed information and narratives in pictorial contexts is a vital skill - one that you can acquire and hone.

I hope you enjoy the series. I’m loving writing it.

Understand what’s strategic.

The most important and strategic choice you’ll make is choosing the agency or design team with which you work. That choice implies that you like their work, trust their judgment, and can afford their services. If any of these things are not true, keep looking until you’ve selected a firm where all of these things are true.

Making an agency/design firm selection requires two commitments. The first commitment is obvious. You are making a commitment to your choice’s success while working with you.

The second commitment is less obvious: you must commit to your own decision, recognizing that second-guessing your choice undermines the health and productivity of the relationship. It’s a little like marriage. How many marriages work when one or both partners can’t stop thinking about or wishing for somebody outside the marriage?

Most good creatives are intuitive and can sense a lack of commitment. They are likely to interpret their hunch any number of ways - some of them counterproductive. If you don’t communicate the truth openly, they will make up their own story about what you think and chances are it won’t help you. Trust emerges from commitment and loyalty. Trust is the magic ingredient when it comes to crafting great creative products.

What is the difference that makes a difference?

When any of us choose an ad agency, a graphic design firm, or a graphic designer, we take a look at work that our candidates have produced to date. Since it is human nature to try and make the best possible impression in the business development process, we can assume that our candidates show us their best/favorite work. Most of us want to be evaluated at our best. Certainly, none of us are excited to present work about which we have mixed emotions or don’t like.

My experience is that most agencies and design teams produce work that reveals a fairly significant range of quality and effectiveness. Some work is stellar and beautiful. Some is frankly a yawn, and some is just plain poor when compared to what you will see included within their business-development portfolio.

Most art directors and designers are surprisingly candid when discussing their work products, especially when trust has been established. “That’s horrible,” “I hate that,” or “I wish we had never taken that project on” are commonly heard among trusted colleagues appraising work quality. My experience is that the best creatives are toughest on themselves when appraising their own performance. Professionals can’t afford to lie to themselves about work quality. It is the road to perdition.

Let me hasten to add that for the purposes of this article, I’m not talking about immature firms or designers where somebody has gotten lucky (Yes, luck can and does influence design quality). I’m discussing firms that are staffed by solid, experienced professionals who have produced a significant body of work over time.

If the same people use the same process to develop design products, how is it that outcomes can be so different? Why is some work product wonderful and some is just acceptable? What variable changes to drive a different result? It may surprise you that the we - the client - are that variable. Design firms and agencies that are a cut above consistently produce good work. Great work, however, requires a great client. It is very difficult to produce great creative for a poor client.

Being a good client is an art.

Effectively playing the client role is more difficult than producing good work. Being a good client requires the ability to get the very best out of creatives. The best clients inspire and give trust, have a gentle touch, are well-organized, listen actively, and create safety zones for their creatives to take risks and make bold choices. Good clients understand the creative process and are sensitive to the creative temperament.

In practical terms, a good client brings clarity and decisiveness to the design development process. Nobody is likely to achieve an unarticulated objective. The best clients have done their work first before commencing the design development process. They know what they’re looking for and can conjure it up in descriptive, practical, tonal, and personality terms.

While this sounds easy, it isn’t. Most people confuse their ability to understand and envision outcomes impressionistically with the ability to give clear and understandable direction. In practical terms, what this means is that no client should expect any communications product to be of a higher quality than the direction provided, even though it sometimes happens that the quality of creative products exceeds the quality of direction given. 

When the creative product quality exceeds the quality of strategy direction, it is usually aesthetically better, but not necessarily strategically better. There’s a lot of pretty product out there that doesn’t get the job done, because goals weren’t clearly articulated and the target audience wasn’t clearly defined.

The best work results from the best direction that is delivered at the appropriate time. So, what is necessary to give good direction and when should it be delivered?

Come back later this week for Part 2: How to Get Ready for Success.