It's best to avoid "Frankensteining."
We’re sure that, if you’ve picked the right creative team, what they present to you will be glorious. That’s certainly true if you’re dealing with work done by the two of us. We’re tremendous. But what if it’s not? What can you do to keep from pissing off these temperamental weirdos, sitting so expectantly in front of you with their precious, precious work?
Welcome back to our series about feedback. If you haven’t read our intro ramblings or our suggestions about preparation, you still can. Otherwise, read on…
If you’ve ever worked on a fundraising campaign or a website redesign or any other activity that requires either a creative agency or freelance designers and copywriters, you’ve probably seen a lot of work you hated. We hope that you’ve also seen a lot of work with which you’ve been thrilled.
But you probably know first-hand that getting there can be difficult, especially when dealing with the “quirks of the creative personality.” (We can say that because we’re “creatives,” as we’re called in the biz. We wouldn’t recommend discussing the quirks of the creative personality directly with creatives with quirky personalities.)
This is a series about feedback, but it’s also a part of a larger conversation about process. Any feedback relates directly to the goals of a project.
At Big Duck, we begin any big project with what we call a project brief. It is a simple document that lays out what you hope to accomplish with the assignment and any parameters related to the project. The strategic and creative teams at Big Duck rely on the project brief to guide our thinking, our brainstorming, our sketching, and even the whining that inevitably accompanies our creative struggles associated with any project.
Dan and Sonny at work.
The two of us have had the pleasure of working together as a creative team (copy and design) over a number of years at two different agencies, for a wide array of corporate and nonprofit clients. We much prefer the nonprofits. Much. Seriously. There’s no comparison. To give you an idea of what we mean, one of our former clients was a major liquor brand. We are both physically unable to drink alcohol. And that, friends, is the tip of the iceberg.
