Creative Briefs

It took me a few days to get back in a posting mood. I've been working and working on getting part 2 of the "Lifestyle" post ready but its still forming and not ready for its debut. With nothing but side projects going on I wasn't sure what to post about today, then I thought about my totally awesome friend Dan Volkens. Dan is a web designer by profession but we met through his blog because we both have a love of all things Volkswagen.

I was working away on a web re-design for one of my freelance clients and had hit a wall. I drew sketch after sketch, looked at a bunch of examples, tried a few things and still wasn't happy. After a few weeks of spinning my wheels and getting nowhere I thought "I should really get some help on this." Luckily, I remembered Dan. He was nice enough to take the time to help me out by pointing me to resources I could actually use.

Although there are a lot of things I could talk about because I learned so much, I'll focus on one thing at a time. Today is the most important thing I took away from Dan's advice:

Do a Creative Brief. Silly me, I'd forgotten all about this. When I proposed a re-design to my client as a part of their marketing effort, I never thought I would be doing it. I was excited initially to be able to have so much control over the project and started searching the web for other websites that looked cool. I foolishly assumed I could take all the best parts from other websites, mash them together and come out on top with the best site on the web. FAIL. The more I tried to imitate other sites the more I hated the end result. I started to think that I was missing something...but what?? Duh. I was missing what the site was supposed to be all about. I hadn't sat down and fleshed out what I wanted to accomplish beyond just having a trendy looking site. Take my advice and don't skip this step for any creative project, web or otherwise. Here are 4 simple questions to get you on the right track:

1. What am I trying to accomplish? (i.e. to inform, to entertain, to persuade)
2. What is my message? What do I want people to know?
3. Who am I talking too?
4. How will I communicate my message?

I concluded that 1.) I'm trying to inform people with the website. 2.) I want people to know about the nightly specials at this night club. I want them to know that the club is also for rent for special events. I want them to know where the night club is. 3.) I'm talking to Tallahassee college students who like to go to dance clubs 4.) I will communicate my message online with a website that lists the specials, has a calendar of upcoming events, has a form for requesting space rental, has "share this" options, and has Google map links for directions.

Now that I know what my goal for the site is I can now focus on the design elements that will make the site function the way I want it to but that's a post for another day :) For now, if you want to learn more about Creative Briefs, read this article on Graphic Define. Its great!