What We Think

New article: Writing a Creative Brief

posted on Jul 20, 2009 by emily

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I've written a new article for Winning Workplaces on working with creative types. There's a sample creative brief download on the site too. Here's the link to the article.

Demystifying the Creative Process, One Brief at a Time

Emily Lonigro is back for another guest post. Emily is owner of Chicago-based LimeRed Studio, a firm that specializes in branding creative for small businesses and nonprofits.

This time around she provides a how-to for pitching a project to a creative professional to quickly get that person in the know and – just as valuable – weed out those who aren't up to the task. Think about how you can use this for both your vendor relations and internally for your workplace team building and employee engagement ideas.

At some point, you’re going to have to hire someone to do creative work for you. It might be for an online ad campaign, a print brochure, a website, an identity overhaul, whatever. You might do a search on Craigslist, post an ad, use a creative job board site, or ask for referrals to find people to bid on the job.

Trust me, this can get messy. You’re going to have way more responses than you know what to do with. What I like to do is advertise with a list of three project-related questions or requirements. If the responder doesn’t address any one of those, then they’re out.

Regardless of how thorough you are with your search, talking to a creative person for the first time can be downright intimidating. A lot of times it goes like this:

You: Hi, I’m from Company, Inc. I saw your ad on Craigslist/My friend said you were great/I’m calling out of the blue and I really need a website. How much do you think that would cost?

Creative Person: Um. Well... (mutes the phone and laughs/rolls her eyes) that depends. What do you want it to do?

You: (thinking: isn’t that your job – to tell me what it should do?) I just need something simple to get myself online.

CP: (already frustrated) A website can be anywhere from $500 to $25,000. I mean, it really depends on your content. Do you have a wireframe? (Designy language ensues.)

You: (sigh)

I’ve been on both ends of this conversation and it’s equally frustrating for both sides. One way to alleviate some of the creative pain is to get your thoughts together before you even talk to or email anyone. What I’m suggesting is writing a creative brief. It’s a shortened, less time-intensive version of an RFP.

A creative brief is a one- or two- page statement of work that you can use to request proposals, compare estimates, and make sure you are comparing apples to apples when choosing a firm or freelancer. The components are:

objectives,
project description,
specific elements,
deliverables,
timeline,
who supplies what, and
any other information you can think of that is relevant to the job. Make it brief and make it informative.

I wrote you one to use – access it here.

Related: Read Emily's previous two posts for us here and here.

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