communication design

Apple’s App of the Year winners and runners-up for both iPhone and iPad are all about the creation (or at least manipulation) of content. The apps listed are Instragram and VidRhythm for the iPhone, and Snapseed and djay for the iPad.

When chatting with colleagues, friends and relatives about the delineation between mobile computing and desktop/laptop computing, it’s often mentioned how consumption of content (mobile) and creation of content (desktop/laptop) defines how we leverage different computing platforms.

With the success of products such as the App of the Year honorees, and other apps built for content creation, we're starting to see a blurring of lines between the various computing platforms in the consumer space. It won't be long before we start to see a shift in the commercial space. For many, this change is already upon us.

OK, I know we’re not going to produce annual reports on our smart phones and send them to a 10-color press over the Whatever-G Network. But I’m curious – as marketing pros, how are we utilizing the strengths of mobile as of late, not so much as a destination for our messages, but in the creation of our messages?

In my case, I’ve adopted OmniFocus to aid the planning and management of communications design projects while I'm away from my desk. On many occasions I’ve found myself relying on Camera+ for photo scouting. These are just a few examples.

So, how about you? In what ways is the mobile platform influencing how you work as a marketing communicator?

On Tuesday this week, Mike Nelson and I recorded what will end-up being the first in a series of Bob Wright Creative podcasts. I'm really excited about this and wanted to give our blog readers a heads-up.

Our goal for the series is help our audience with marketing and communication design problems by sharing our experiences.

This was the first time I'd personally taken part in making a recording like this and it was a lot of fun—so much fun that we'll be doing it on a regular basis. Usually I'm helping a client develop this kind of content so it was a special treat to be behind the mic. Mike is an audio pro and made it easy.

So, keep an eye out for the launch. (We still have to edit, etc.) Of course, we'll shout it from the rooftops when episode one goes live.

If you have topic ideas or questions you'd like us to tackle, feel free to leave them in the comments.

With your first step inside The Maplewood in Webster, New York, one thing becomes abundantly clear - the nature of long-term and rehabilitation care has changed. The Maplewood's foundation of innovative clinical care is housed within a model that is focused on hospitality, not institutional confines. The Maplewood feels more like a resort, and less like a nursing home. With this in mind, we set out to deliver a new website that captures the unique nature of the Maplewood brand. "Distinctly Different" is a key pillar of The Maplewood - one that informs every aspect of the website. As the central hub for Maplewood information, family members, residents, professional community, and staff all benefit from a rich presentation of valuable content. Highlights include photo slideshows, in-depth information, "Get to Know" videos, and a growing blog presence. Soon to be launched will be an audio podcast series to help listeners make informed decisions around long-term and rehabilitation care. Many thanks go to Maplewood's owner/administrator, Greg Chambery, for having the vision and commitment to developing a site of this nature. We invite you to visit www.MaplewoodNursingHome.com, and lend us your feedback.

Gap's actions over the last week expose some deep problems—problems that even great design can't fix.

The new Gap logo is old news. If you've been following their marketing train wreck you know that after getting tarred and feathered by the online community they backtracked by announcing they would crowdsource their brand in hopes of finding an identity that really gets the job done.

Besides the fact that their agency who created the new logo, Laird+Partners, must feel pretty unhappy and that Gap's management must be under intense shareholder scrutiny, the idea that a crowd is the solution is just wrong.

For the uninitiated, crowdsourcing is a problem-solving and production model that broadcasts a challenge to the public, asking it to put the power of a distributed network to work. It's been a hot topic ever since Wired's Jeff Howe coined the term in 2006.

I'm all about the idea of distributed networks and leveraging the power of thousands to get a job done. In fact, I love open source software, like Drupal's awesome CMS. It's a great example of a type of crowdsourcing as people all over the world work to make Drupal better, fixing problems, collaborating and generally delivering an awesome solution.

But, the people working on Drupal are all programming experts; they’re specialists. There are no good natured retired factory workers with a little spare time hacking code—unless of course they know code! If you're working on Drupal you're a programmer.

Gap's proposed solution is to throw the doors open to anyone with MS Paint. Forget any qualifications, experience or skills. Gap says they think you can fix their brand, and that's troubling on two levels.

First, does Gap disrespect their brand so much that they are willing to let just anyone work on it? Can a company that does hundreds of millions of dollars in sales, all based on its brand, actually just throw that brand out to the crowd and think that's responsible brand management? Forget the fact that a huge corporation that makes millions of dollars is asking hundreds of thousands of people to work for free. What makes Gap think the masses can fix their failure? Why don’t they understand that they need the help of experts?

Second, is Gap is really being sincere in asking the crowd for help? If they respect their brand and they know they need the help of experts, then they don't really think the crowd will have the right answer. Crowdsourching is just a PR ploy; manipulation to put a good face on a really stupid move and to get everyone to just shut up. If they don't expect the crowd, their customers, to have the right answer, then why insult them by asking for help? And let’s face it, if they really believed in crowdsourcning they'd put all their clothing designs up for grabs.

Gap does not respect its brand or its customers. They have a problem that runs much deeper than a design or marketing issue. They've got a leadership problem. I don't care how good a design solution is, paid or crowdsourced, great design can't fix a lack of integrity or broken leadership.

Here's a recent piece we did for Spectracom promoting their Path Align-R technology. Check it out!

Creative Team Creative Direction: Phil Daggar, Bob Wright Creative Illustration: Ken Townsend, Bob Wright Creative Flash Programming: Jon Daggar, Bob Wright Creative Writer & Audio Production: Tom Cummings, Cummings Creative Learn more about Spectracom and see the web site user interface we created for them by visiting: www.spectracomcorp.com

Natch.

I've just been invited to address visual arts students from Finger Lakes Community College in October. How cool is that?

I've been asked to talk about what our firm looks for in freshly minted designers in order to help them think about what skills to develop and how to put together a winning portfolio. It's such an honor because it ties into our guiding principle and I love the chance to give back and to help young people find their way.

Special thanks to Liz Brownell, Assistant Professor of Art, for the invitation—You made my day!

Remember the days when you had to develop a creative brief to kick off a project? You know, when budgets were not an issue and the three-martini lunch was standard?

Yeah. Neither do we and we’ve been at this for over 40 years.

But, don’t let that stop you from taking advantage of this great tool. Creative briefs can make your job much easier, help avoid mistakes and keep your project focused from start to finish.

What is a Creative Brief?

A creative brief is a planning and guidance tool. It outlines the critical information that’s needed to deliver a successful project.

It’s a simple document, usually one or two pages, that keeps the project team focused on what matters by answering important questions.

Creative briefs typically provide the following information:

General project information

Project purpose and goals

Target audience info

Requirements and restrictions

Timelines

Why Use a Creative Brief?

A creative brief helps the project sponsor set the project up for success by allowing them to think through the important questions before diving into the project.

A good brief helps the creative team by defining boundaries. Many people think of the creative process as something that should be wide open. They’re afraid that the results might be stunted if they impose limitations. But, oddly enough, the opposite is true! We deliver our best work when we have boundaries.

It also helps all the stakeholders by defining what a successful project will look like. You may be an experienced marketer and can tell good design when you see it. But, can your boss? How about your board? What about your business partner?

Not everyone understands marketing, but many times they are put in a position to evaluate or even approve a design project. A creative brief spells out the problem, project goals and target market, giving non-marketing stakeholders a focused, logical set of data that they can use to evaluate the project’s success, keeping them away from subjectivity.

Elements of A Creative Brief

So, what should a good creative brief contain? The following elements should provide you with a guide to creating your own creative brief.

Project name
The name of this element is self-explanatory. Right?

Trebuchets R Us Store Promotion Campaign

Description

A brief summary of the project in a few sentences.

The Trebuchets R Us Store Promotion Campaign is designed to drive traffic to our new retail location in Miami through a direct mail campaign.

The Problem
Explain your current situation, challenges, what’s wrong, what needs to be changed and what’s working. Talk about why you need to do this project and what you hope to achieve by it’s successful execution.

Trebuchets R Us recently opened a store in Miami, FL. This is our first retail store. We are having trouble getting people to visit the store.

Market research shows that people do not know about our store and they don’t know what a trebuchet is or how it can be useful to them. We want to alert people of our existence, educate them about trebuchets and communicate the value of a trebuchet for the average suburban home.

Target Audience

Here you define your audience and identify any unique characteristics it may have. This section should include any demographic information you have, distilled, of course.

Our target audience is grouchy white males, aged 56 to 75. We know that they are not worried about their safety. But, they do worry about neighbors walking on their lawn and want to find a way to keep people off it without building an expensive fence. These men take great pride in their lawns, live on a pensioner’s income and drive a GM vehicle.

Goals

What are the primary goals of this project? It’s important to have goals that are measurable because without measurable goals you can’t know if the project was successful. You’ll be left evaluating things like how much your coworkers liked the direct mail piece or how nicely it was to work with the agency.

The general goal of Trebuchets R Us is to drive traffic to our new retail location in Miami. Specifically, we have 10 people a day visiting our store. We need to increase daily traffic by 50%, which equals 15 customers a day.

Requirements and Restrictions

In this section we define any requirements that have to be met and any restrictions that need to be placed on the project.

Typically, both requirements and restrictions are technical in nature. You don’t need to address things like budgets or the fact that your CEO wants to approve everything before it goes.

Requirements:

- Three mailings executed within one month

- All printing to be done by InkMaster’s House of Printing

- All mail fulfillment handled by Stuffer Sam

Restrictions:

- Mail piece format must be based on USPS standard sizes

- Restricted to existing marketing database. No new names will be purchased

Schedule

This is where the project’s schedule gets defined. It can be as specific as a timeline with dates or more general with blocks of time assigned to each phase, or simply a due date.

Project complexity will drive the level of detail needed. As always, simple is best. If you want tons of detail, leave it out of the creative brief and make a Gantt chart.

Jan 2 - Project kick-off
Jan 18 - Initial concepts
Feb 3 - Final concepts
Feb 6 - Final concepts approved
Feb 7 - Files to printer
Feb 22 - Printed assets to fulfillment house
March 1 - First mail drop
March 15 - Second mail drop
March 30 - Third mail drop

Stakeholders

Here you identify who has a stake in this project and what their involvement will be.

This helps you think through who to include in the process, both internally and externally.

Also, this helps the creative team to know who they need to consider when doing the project. If it’s clear from the outset that accounting gets final approval then the agency can present their solution in terms that make sense to the accounting department.

Ed Big, CEO - Ed will have final say on pretty much everything

Wilma Barney, Product Manager - Wilma will take part in initial brain-storming session and sign off on all copy

Chet Armstrong, Marketing - Chet is project sponsor and will be involved in all aspects of the project

Sam of Stuffer Sam - Sam will handle all fulfillment aspects

Michelle Breeze of MB Creative - Michelle will art direct the project and handle all client and vendor relationships

Who Should Write A Creative Brief?

Finally, who should write the creative brief, the client or the agency?

Of course, there’s no hard and fast rule--either can do it. The key is not really who writes it, but that the document is a collaboration.

The marketer sponsoring the project at least needs to be able to help answer the key questions: general information on the project, its purpose and goals, the target audience, requirements, restrictions and timelines.

The agency can take the lead on developing the creative brief and help the client flesh out their answers. Both the client and the agency need to approve the document once it’s done for it to be valuable.

Now you know all you need to develop a creative brief for your next project. Make sure to leave a comment and let us know if you found this post to be helpful.