How To: Respond To A Brief
How To: Respond To A Brief
It sounds simple, but understanding exactly what a client wants you to produce can be harder than it seems. Whether it’s your first project or hundredth, the way to establish and maintain a long standing professional relationship is to successfully interpret what exactly they want from you, eliminating the back and forth that comes with alterations.
Creative briefs aren’t just exclusive to work environments, you’ll encounter them within education too. Fashion Minority Report has one as part of the Breaking into Fashion Journalism workshop, our latest initiative to help budding writers get started in the publishing world. Read our tips below on how to make sure you’re grasping the task at hand.
Before Starting…
Highlight keywords
Start by reading the brief and properly analysing everything the client is asking you to do. Do this by highlighting key words so that you’re more likely to remember them. It can be so easy to interpret a completely different task from what the client actually wanted when you don’t take the time to concentrate on their request.
Ask questions
Don’t be afraid to ask questions if there’s something you don’t understand. It’s better to have open dialogue with your client, and it’ll save having numerous critiques once you’ve submitted the task.
Plan
You’ve read through the brief, asked necessary questions; now it’s time to start working. Creating a plan will give you direction when working through the brief, and it’ll stop you from deviating away from what’s been requested.
Make Sure Too…
Consider the client’s brand
This will instantly show that you’ve understood what they wanted. To do this, try to use their company colours and language, so it feels like something they produced themselves. Spend time researching this via their website and any other public projects they’ve done.
Step into their world
You want to create something that feels intrinsic to the client’s company, so you need to be a part of their universe. Ask these questions while you’re working on the brief.
‘If I was the client…
- What would I care about?
- What would I want to see from a submission?
- What would excite me?
- What would make my life easier?’
Once It’s Submitted…
Ask for feedback
This will help you fine tune for any potential briefs that may come in the future, and shows that you care about the project and the client.
