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Creative Direction & Briefing SOP
This article is an SOP for creative direction and feedback between CS MMD and GG
Briefing:
First and foremost please provide a B### with the description of your brief as soon as possible. This will help your Designer with their organization of assets in the very first step, as it eliminates any misplaced assets from clients, mismatched briefs, file management issues, loss of assets, and finally and most importantly, gives the Designer the proper file name before they even open After Effects or Photoshop. File management is key part of your Designer’s KPIs, in which it is imperative that files are named correctly, so as a Creative Strategist, your part in aiding in organization should be top priority! It’s a team effort.
As a team, you may experience times of very tight deadlines. This can arise from an amalgamation of things, for instance, team shifts (change of clients), team members being out-of-office, 4th quarter Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales. the best practice is to be as absolutely clear as possible. Be as specific as possible in your brief, down to how many deliverables, sizes, and exactly which products we’re focusing on. This means, avoid linking huge amounts of assets, avoid vague ideas, avoid just linking an ad for inspiration without further clarity of exactly how you want it implemented into your brief. It may seem that you’re doing a designer a favor by leaving the creative reigns loose, but in reality it’s adding even more time to the creative process (again, this is especially important in times of tight deadlines)
Avoid copy and pasting notes from Client (ie screenshots). I know this may seem like you’re saving time or eliminating redundancy, but it’s much more helpful for a Designer to have actionable notes from their CS, as it eliminates any misconstruction or misinterpretations with how these notes should be applied (especially when toolkits become very large in volume). Over-communication means to deliver clarity with more than is normal, not simply copy and pasting conversations.
Write EVERYTHING down. This includes internal conceptualizing, ideas, briefs, inspiration, internal review, and especially external review. Please use Asana for your brief, notes (especially when clients leave notes in Frame io, frame io doesn’t notify us if notes are left). Some CSs like to use Slack or Zoom for notes, but due to its linear conversation format, it’s very easy for links, notes, assets etc to be lost. It’s much better to keep everything inside its designated project card in Asana. This is especially important when working on multiple brands a week. Slack or Zoom isn’t organized for this type of communication.
Give your Designer credit!! Designing an ad is some tough, tough work. Assets and copy don’t always flow with one another. Creative is a problem-solving endeavor that often isn’t appreciated, as most people won’t ever see After Effects or Photoshop being operated. Designing an ad in your head is much easier than in software, so if your client loves an ad, be conscious of giving your Designer, and their hard work, some much needed credit.