White Papers: Successful Creative Briefs: Linking Business Objectives and Creative Strategies

Call them what you will—“creative briefs,” “design briefs,” “marketing briefs,” “communications briefs,” or even “objectives and strategies statements”—the actual name is less important than helping creative and marketing professionals to fully understand and appreciate their potential value to any design initiative within your organization. Many designers and their clients have yet to completely embrace the creative brief as a vital part of the design process to share valuable information, build consensus, align expectations, and set clear objectives. This paper details how to create successful briefs and provides samples.

Having worked with hundreds of creative professionals to hone their business skills in order to improve communications and relationships between them and their clients, I am confident that the creative brief—when properly developed and adhered to—is one of the most valuable tools in the design process, providing a vital connection between business objectives and creative strategies. For clients, account managers, and creatives, a clear and well-prepared design brief can help make a project, just as a long-winded and unfocused brief can lead to its ultimate demise. While briefs should be customized to each individual discipline, company, and project, there are some common techniques that you can use to help ensure that your organization is not only creating impactful briefs, but is also getting the most out of them.

Case Studies: Building the Dream Design Team

Aquent provided the strategic design expertise a global consumer products company needed in order to reduce spending and increase utilization rates for its design group. Since Aquent was first engaged, the operations manager has established workflow processes that have reduced client spend levels and the entire design team has maintained an impressive average utilization rate of 86 percent.

Case Studies: Customer retention materials

Aquent design talent helped a leading financial services company shift gears rapidly and defend business in a down market.

Case Studies: Specialized Creative Services Team

Webcasts: Design through the downturn and beyond: A look at the future of design

Graphic designers experience significant risk of commoditization now and will, even more so, in the future. The challenges of differentiation and articulating the value of design are growing. Josh Levine discusses the realities faced by designers today and offers visions of how to approach these challenges.

Webcasts: Attributes of a Great Designer: a conversation with Debbie Millman

Presented by: Debbie Millman, president of the Design Division at Sterling Brands and author of the book "How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer," and Randy Ricker, Director of Aquent's Graphic Design Practice

In this Aquent-sponsored webcast, you can learn from Debbie Millman’s experience and perspective on:

• Non-design skills matter for designers
• Understanding strategy
• Creating client trust and salesmanship
• Ideas for lifelong learning for designers

Surveys: 2009 AIGA | Aquent Survey of Design Salaries

The AIGA | Aquent Survey of Design Salaries is the most comprehensive annual survey of compensation data for the communication design profession in the United States. It reports the actual salary ranges for design positions among AIGA members and related professionals in the United States. The survey is based on salaries in 2008, when many design firms reported that their businesses were relatively solid—in fact, the industry seemed even more robust than many other economic sectors—although the economy had already slipped into recession.

Surveys: 2008 AIGA | Aquent Survey of Design Salaries

The most unbiased‚ professionally researched tool of its kind‚ it draws upon data provided by more than 6‚000 design professionals throughout the United States.