How a Creative Brief Can Save Money
How can you do more with less? This is a question we are asked every day, and periodically we will offer some ideas to assist marketers extend their budgets. The most best and most important way you can save money is to write a creative brief.
A creative brief is a written overview document that lays out the objectives of your project and outlines what you want the annual report, website, logo, etc. to accomplish and should be written before you meet with the design firm. Writing a brief helps you shape your thoughts and clarify your expectations around and vision of the project. While a brief may change once you have engaged a firm—the principal will most likely offer some additional ideas to include—the document will keep everyone on track as the project moves through creative development to completion.
Assignments that start with a thorough brief have fewer revision costs, and fewer headaches because everyone understands the goal they are working towards. Here’s a sample design brief you can download to use for yourself. Please feel free to adapt it to your needs and situation.
The marketing landscape has shifted permanently, but the need for visual communications that influence and inspire customers to take action is not going away. By taking just a few steps to streamline the process, marketers can continue to execute effectively on their marketing plans and quite possibly find the result is better work more easily achieved than ever before.
News: Decker Design Offers Advice to Emerging Designers
NEW YORK (Apr. 7, 2009) – For emerging designers, the transition from school to work is difficult, to put it mildly. The first thing you learn is that there is more to learn. A lot more, ” says Lynda Decker, president of New York City based Decker Design, whose firm has developed the first in a series of presentations for young designers published by AIGA, the professional association for design: "After School Special: Advice for emerging designers." The web-based presentation outlines 11 things new designers need to consider as they begin to navigate and use their skills in the “real world.” View the presentation here.
Decker worked with AIGA executive director Ric Grefé on the idea, which originally was designed as a book. Impressed by the work and wanting to make it available to as many people as possible, he asked if it could be converted to the web.
"The transition between school and work for designers is such a crucial period in developing a designer's future. Yet, there are few sources of support and mentoring. In seeking to fill this void, we turned to a professional who has learned the lessons of becoming a respected designer and an empathetic, clear-minded mentor, Lynda Decker. The advice for emerging designers presentation is an accessible, evergreen tool that will be helpful to graduating design students and new agency employees alike,” said Grefé.
AIGA, the professional association for design (http://www.aiga.org), is a global design network headquartered in New York City, with chapters nationwide and in China. Its mission is to stimulate thinking about design, demonstrate the value of design and empower the success of designers at each stage of their career. Decker is an active member of the organization and a past vice-president of the New York chapter.
Decker Design (http://deckerdesign.com) is a leading visual communications design firm serving innovative companies around the globe. Since 1996, Decker’s web and print designs along with its brand identities have influenced and inspired client audiences for industries such as energy, banking, healthcare, legal, creative, and more. For more information about Decker Design, visit http://deckerdesign.com.
New Work: Vesta Hoboken
Hot, Hip, Hoboken. Hoboken? Yes, Hoboken. Hoboken offers history, charm and a youthful community that has been priced out of the Manhattan market. The communication strategy invites the unhappy apartment dweller to a better place: Vesta Hoboken. The Decker team working with long-time client the Vesta Group, created a program that includes logo development, web site, sales collateral, advertising kiosks and a sales office installation.
