“If I knew what I wanted, I would have done it myself.”
I chuckled knowingly.
An old friend now heading an international NGO’s marketing voiced his frustration. “The agency wants a brief — what do I want to say, how do I want to present the content, what images do I want to use. How is that my job?”
There’s a running joke that designers can’t read and can’t process information. Sometimes it’s not a funny joke. It’s the reality.
Try placing yourself inside an agency and eavesdropping on the typical conversation between the creatives and the client-facing people.
“If the client doesn’t give a proper brief, we can’t start work.”
But they have given a brief.
“How is this a brief? XXX wants to launch YYY in August. Founded in 1968, XXX is today a USD10 billion group with diverse business interests, recognised as the world’s leading manufacturer and exporter of ZZZ. The requirement is to develop and execute a complete 360-degree launch plan.”
But that’s the brief. They’ve given you everything they have. You’re supposed to work it out.
“What am I supposed to do with this? All these attached reports and Excel files don’t help.”
But that’s the brief for the website. You are the designer.
“How am I supposed to create an infographic video based on all these PPTs? It’s a mess. Can someone sort this out first?”
But that’s the brief. Who are you expecting to step in?
The creatives then launch into a rant about client servicing not doing their job, or start cursing clients for giving impossible briefs.
The usual agency solution: servicing people become the first line of scapegoats. They’re tasked to ensure briefs are comprehensive enough for the creatives to work on. The drawback? They drive clients mad. Clients retaliate with prescriptive, over-detailed briefs. The creatives then groan about creativity being restricted.
“The client wants us to use Shutterstock illustrations only!”
They forgot they asked the client to include “style of illustration” in the brief.
Some agencies assign writers to sort briefs out — distilling client inputs into nicely typed documents that designers can copy-paste and start working from. Content writers. Content planners. Content directors. Specific job titles, created because writers can process information.
But why is content planning a writer’s job?
Why do designers want everything served on a platter before they’ll start? Why are they reluctant to go through the Excel sheets, the marketing reports, the competitor websites, to pick up the phone and ask questions — and from all of that, gain a better understanding of what the client’s actual challenge is?
Have designers willingly reduced themselves to a pair of hands that translates strategy into visuals? And if so — whose job is it to make their life easier? Client servicing? Writers? Or just pass the ball back to the client?
A friend in marketing once told me one of her red flags when selecting an agency is when they don’t come back with questions. “That tells you they haven’t understood the depth of the brief — which leads to run-of-the-mill, plug-and-play solutions.”
What is a good brief? Designers will never be happy with the answer. Too little and they can’t work. Too much and they won’t read it.
The joke writes itself.
