How to write a creative brief

source: https://www.adcracker.com/brief/Sample_Creative_Brief.htm

Sample "Classic" Creative Brief for 2012:

Client / Client contact information:
Name, phone number and email address for the person or the team on the client side.

Project:
Example: “New campaign to test "CitiClick" for Citibank.”

Prepared by:
Name, phone number and email address for the person or team members who are responsible for writing the brief.

1 Background / Overview:
What's the big picture? What's going on in the market? Anything happening on the client side that the creative team should know about? Any opportunities or problems in the market?
This is where you introduce the project to the creative team. You'll go over this again in the briefing session, but write it down as well.
For an overview, state, "Who is the ad talking to, and what is the one main thing we want to say?"
Example: This is a test campaign to a selection of Citibank customers. We want them to try Citibank's new "CitiClick" - which is available as an app and a widget - that makes online purchases easier and more secure - and we've got a $1 pizza offer to get them started.

2) What is the objective, the purpose of the ad?
A concise statement of the effect the ad should have on consumers. Typically expressed as an action. And frequently focused on what the ad should make the audience think, feel, or do.
Example: We want people to download the free app and use it within 10 days to buy the special offer, a $1 family size pizza from Papa John's.

3) Target audience: who are we talking to?
The more precise and detailed the better. Go beyond age and sex to describe demographics and psychographics. Explain how the audience currently thinks, feels and behaves in relation to the product category, the client's brand, and the client's specific product or service. > See consumer involvement theory.
Example: This campaign will be aimed exclusively at existing Citibank customers in three test markets: Sacramento, CA, Houston, TX, and Washington DC.
The primary target will be segments of our customer database: male and female, 20 to 35 YO, with at least one Citibank credit card. The target will be approximately 70% married, with combined HH incomes of $85k on average.
This audience is comfortable with new technology, and quick to test new smart phone apps or widgets that leverage their time. They like to be among the first to have the latest and greatest electronics. They make multiple online purchases monthly. We will call our representative persona "Joe".


4) What's the single most important thing to say?
What's the single most persuasive or most compelling statement we can make to achieve the objective?
This should be a simple sentence. No more than a few sentences if absolutely necessary. Avoid generalities.
Example: "Joe - CitiClick will simplify and speed all of your online purchases, while providing increased security."
 
5) What are the supporting rational and emotional 'reasons to believe and buy?'
Explain why the consumer should believe what we say, and why they should buy.
Include all the major copy points, in order of relative importance to the consumer. In other words, 'What else can we say and show to achieve the objective?'
Example:

1) It's free, from Citibank - your trusted financial partner.
2) Get a PJ pizza for $1.
3) Backed with a 100% purchase protection guarantee.
4) It has earned rave reviews from real users. (See attached quotes.)
5) Takes just seconds to select from multiple pre-personalized download options via your online account.

7) Schedule: What do we need from the creative team? When do we need it?
Provide all details on media, size and color - for both the initial concepts and finished art. Example:
1) Date _________initial creative review of rough pencil sketch ideas.
2) Date _________review revised creative. Half size, with color, hand or computer created.
3) Date _________final internal creative presentation. Same finish as previous round.
4) Date _________client creative & media presentation. Full size, full color. Hand or computer created.
5) Date _________ print ads delivered to publication.

> A client services check list
[ ] Do we have sufficient reference sources: previous ads, brochures, competitor ads, books, videos or Web sites?
[ ] Do we have contact info / links to people, research or resources that can help the creative team?
[ ] Do we need a supplemental brief / info for a long format, social media, direct response, or new business pitch project?
[ ] Is it clear from the client what must be in the communication, and what might be in the communication? What are the client requirements versus client preferences?
[ ] Do we represent the client's issues, concerns, wishes?

Guerrilla marketing

Very original guerrilla marketing campaign of a newspaper.

Diesel ad

The advertising campaign of Diesel really intrigues me because they encourage their target audience to "Be stupid". Is it a way to transmit the message that their items are only for bad boys and girls, and targeting teenagers. As we say in French "C'est l'age bête!"

Fuel for you- Cereals only for rough guys

This is my project of marketing which was about creating new cereals for men that contain proteins.
The focal point is FUEL because it is written in red and capital letters. I choose capital letters because it really creates this rough sensation that we want to transmit to our target audience. The main elements creates a circle; in fact, from FUEL, to the ingredients, to the cereals bowl, to the man, to finally ending by NEW.  

Dali- BOMB

This is a painting of Dali, a Spanish surrealist painter.I choose this painting because it express the contrast between the nature (the tree), the bomb (foreground image) which also can represent the back head of a human. We can link all these elements as if the human being creates the bomb and the nature is still in the back ground. However, we have the impression that the human being is coming to the nature step by step.
 

Design analysis- TRON

1) What is the picture about?

            This picture is a poster of the Disney movie “Tron: Legacy”. The movie is about a science fiction story of Sam Flynn, a 27 years old bad boy who is searching for the reason of the mysterious disappearance of his father who is a famous creator of a video game. During his researches, he has been imprisoned in a video game and found that his father was imprisoned too. They, both of them, with a girl “Olivia” had to fight for their freedom in a virtual world created by Sam’s father.

            2) Content and analysis of the picture:

            Concerning the content and analysis of the poster, the dominant colors are black, white and different scales of blue, which represent melancholia and tragedy. First, a representation of a white beam composed of light is important and represents a vertical focal point in the poster. This white color represents purity and seems to appear from the main characters. Those characters are in the center of the poster and make them important, and also the fact of putting them close together creates a feeling of a strong relationship between them. The male character has his arms up to the sky and gives the impression of being strong, protector, and the leader of the story. On the other hand, the female character is looking for protection by looking down and being at the level of the male’s breast character. Moreover, there are two white lines that go from the bottom of the movie poster to the center of it and circle the two main characters, and this give them more importance.

            Concerning the background, it is composed of a sky that is grey and stormy, and represents the complexity of the story with difficulties and a lot of strong and violent actions that create mystery. We can notice few lines in orange at the left of the poster, and we might think that these lines are important in the story.

            The color orange gives a strong contrast with the dominant blue in the poster. We have also in the back the representation of a futurist city where we can notice big buildings with a little bit of light. There are also kinds of highways that create a sensation of complexity to arrive to the futurist city.

            Concerning the typography in the poster, we can notice the logo of “Disney” at the top of the title, and it lets people think that it is made by one of the famous film production company, and gives the impression of a fiction story. The title “Tron” is written in a decorative style which inspires futurism and the light color used perfectly matches with the blue dominant color.  The second part of the title “Legacy” gives the impression of history and past story, so maybe it refers to the first “Tron” movie of the 80’s or maybe it has its importance in the movie itself. Concerning the information at the bottom of the page, it says that the movie is in 3D which perfectly matches with the futurist concept of the film and gives more added value to it.

            3) Critics of the picture:

            I am going to start a critic analysis of the movie poster by following the main principles in design. The first question to ask is what is the big idea? Can we understand that it is a science fiction movie? In my opinion, the colors, effects, and the light make it obvious. Even if the two characters in the center of the poster are close together, it doesn’t give the sensation of a love story because there is too much effects in the back.

            Knowing that images are the best friends of the audience in terms of attention getting, we first pay attention to certain elements more than others. In fact, the white beam of light attracts first the attention, and then our eyes go to the two main characters, and finally to the title of the movie. So, we can say that the three main elements are: the straight white line, the two characters, and the title. Moreover, in terms of scale, the size of the different elements increases their importance.

            The straight white line creates symmetry in the poster, and the fact of putting the two characters in the center of it, makes it balanced. In fact, a well distribution of elements are done because we can distinguish the bottom part of the poster composed of text and information, and the upper part is dominated by the straight line.

            Concerning the proximity between elements, we don’t feel that the poster is too crowded. Elements are separated, and even the highways in the background are distinguishable.

            The stormy sky and the constant and distinguishable highways create a texture in the background and make the poster denser. We feel an empty space on the top of the poster, but this empty space is broken by the straight white line in its middle.

            In terms of unity and harmony, we really feel the homogeneity of the poster because it respects all the properties of design.

            Concerning the use of colors, we can notice a good contrast of colors because the designer used shouting ones: Blue/ orange, and used black and white as another contrast. When I think about science fiction movies and think scales of green and black. So, the use of blue is maybe used to represent the sad side of the story.

            The typography is also used in a contrasting way. I mean by that, there are different types (decorative for the title, and sans serif for the second part of the title), different size in order to give importance to certain elements.

            If we talk about the 6 elements of contrast, we see that there is different size in the different elements, different weight, a good structure in the poster, different forms and types of typography, I am not sure that there is different directions, and the colors are creating a good contrast.

Jacek Utko's work

Here is an example of Jacek Utko's redesigning the cover page of a Polish newspaper.

Notice how he uses one major picture that visually attracts and a logo that is in red which continues the eyetracking movement.

Newspaper project

My final project was about redesigning the coverpage of the AUI newspaper since nobody read it. So, we worked with student from Inholland university and agreed on the research question, litterature review and the methodology. We came out with the fact that images, typography, and design principles play a major role in redesigning a cover page. I personally based my work on Jacek Utko, who is a Polish redesigner of newspaper. So, we decided to used green, red and grey, agreed on using more views than news and the new cover page should look like a magazine and more precisely an A3 newspaper such as Metro...
And this cover page is what I actually ended with.

Girl with a Pearl Earring- Vermeer

This is my favorite painting of Vermeer. Vermeer was most of the time painting women in everyday life tasks, here in this painting, the girl was actually working as a maid in Vermeer's house, and during a "no inspiration" period she helped him in some of his works.
Vermeer used chiaroscuro  technique of painting, in other words the painting is composed of light and dark areas. The ground is a thick, yellowish-white layer containing lead white.
The dark background and the deeper shadows of the girl's face, turban were established with a mixture of black and other pigments of colors. The turban was painted with varying shades of blue.

Colorful Masai

I choose this picture because it is visually attractive. The beauty of the Masai culture really attracts me with its colors. Moreover, I still remember when we were studying the chapter about Colors, that some communities perceive colors differently. So, why the Masai tribes always red as a dominant color in their clothes? Is it because they see it more?

source: http://blog.africaimports.com/wordpress/2010/02/10/the-life-of-a-massai-warrior/