Category: Dyer Straits
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Normally I write for the creatives, but this one…this one’s for the clients. Print it out and staple it to some foreheads…maybe even your own. Leave it randomly in the foyer of random offices, or tape it to the toilet paper dispenser in the bathroom.
Hello Clients. How are you?
You’re probably standing in the doorway of your in-house designer or at the workplace of a design firm, and you’re holding a post-it note saying something like:
“Need website with shopping cart,” or “Need complete business identity: Be creative!”
Hot tip: With a sadly lacking creative brief, you’re setting yourself up for a bad bad bad bad bad bad bad situation.
Just like asking God for a hairy chest when I was 11 years old.
I prayed to God that I might have chest hair like Tom Selleck. All the ladies loved the chest hair, so I said “God?”
“Yes, Tom?”
“I want body hair; I’ve been a good boy.”
“I know, Tom, and verily I say unto thee, that thou shalt have thy wish in abundance. Let there be a whole forest of hair, sprinting nimbly up and over your shoulders, down your back and deep into the crack of your hiney….”
“Um…wait….God…wait, um…”
“And let this back hair be patchy and weird-looking. And so that you may always enjoy it, I grant you extremely sensitive skin so that any attempt to remove the hair will be met with waves of viciously nasty hair bumps.”
“Whoa…whoa there, God…settle down…”
“And may the hair on the back of your neck connect with your beard, so that you may wear a helmet of unsightly fuzz with two convenient ear-holes.”
“Okay, maybe I should be a little clearer when I…”
“And so that you may hear the sound of your hair growing, I give you tufts of hair in your ears, too. Am I not a giving God?”
“Um…technically, yes…”
“Well good. I have a squash match in ten, so I’ll catch you around. Have a good one and..uh…stay warm!”
*sigh….
The point is, clients…creative briefs are not meant to be THAT brief. So pretty please, start writing more stuff on your post-it note. Use both sides even.
Graduate to a whole sheet of paper. Include things like due dates and ideas of your own, maybe a company overview, a history, a few samples of your existing stuff.
Because if you don’t…well, let’s just say that if you’re not clear enough in saying what you want, your designers will try valiantly to fill in those blanks for you.
Now, it might end up fantastic and wonderful and life-affirming, or … you too could end up waxing hair out of your ears for the next 50 years.
Thomas (Tom) Stephan | Director of Something Clever
BoDo Author | Dyer Straits | Working Pro bono
Comments to this post:
Comment: Poisonberry says
I love your blogs! It’s like a much needed ray of sun after a cloudy month. THANK YOU THANK YOU!!
I played with the idea to print this out, and paste it on my door!
THANK YOU
3rd March 2008 Quote
Comment: PXLated says
Good post!
3rd March 2008 Quote
Comment: Michael says
Stephen…
Now that I’ve stopped crying (laughter tears of course), I can thank you for great ammo when next I hear the phrase “don’t worry, I know what I don’t like when I see it”
Clients, both corporate, and freelance, consistently amaze me when they’re taken aback by what they see as incessant questions.
My incessant questions quickly follow sttements like “we want a “spring” feel to this piece” or “the last ad has been working, but can we try something different this week. don’t know what exactly, but can you…”
Again, thanks for the time you took writing that little short story.
Warm regards from Miamisburg, Ohio
Michael
P.S. Where’s your trackback link?
3rd March 2008 Quote
Comment: Catherine Morley says
Hi Michael,
Wordpress automatically spits out trackbacks so we don’t need an official link.
Hi all,
Tom will be here to answer comments when he gets rid of those pesky clients of his …
3rd March 2008 Quote
Comment: Thomas Stephan says
Hi all and thanks for your comments!
I’m actually not with clients — I’m out buying a razor taped to a yardstick…
3rd March 2008 Quote
Comment: JoLynn Braley says
Hi Tom,
Love how you got your point across, how funny! :)
I would apply your reminder to the task of hiring a web designer to create a unique blog design. No one can read your mind and we need to know what we want. Thanks!
3rd March 2008 Quote
Comment: richtypist hitting it Big says
Hi Tom
You ar totally hillarious…have you tried tape?lol. I always believed brief to the point is most effective but i see your point and brief i might have been with my prospects… need to sound more like you
4th March 2008 Quote
Comment: GG says
*snicker*
Too funny but a great way to make the point.
My personal challenge was a client who, contrary to my requests and directives, just kept sending me more disks and files–I think at last count there were 10…not counting my flash drive.
Anyway, she didn’t understand why I could not find what she was talking about nor did she understand why trickling information instead of giving it all at once was a problem.
Your example of the abundant hair blessing fits here, too–I think.
Anyway, I give lots of value and extras…so it was hard to get her to move on.
But oh happy day, now she has and we both are a lot happier!
4th March 2008 Quote
Comment: Thomas Stephan says
Hiya GG, nice to see you again,
Yes - I’ve been the recipient of the 10 percent nightmare…where you get 90 percent of the info and then the last 10 percent is gotten by crying, screaming, begging, threatening, murder, mayhem and mayonnaise, only to have the client say “I don’t understand what the fuss is about, and why isn’t it done yet?” And ever notice that the 10 percent of the stuff is exactly the stuff you need to even begin?
4th March 2008 Quote
Comment: Thomas Stephan says
Hi Richtypist!
Yeah, there’s such a thing as too brief…just think Britney Spears and her miniskirts…*shudder….
4th March 2008 Quote
Comment: Erin Harris says
Oh, Tom… Your posts always make my day. But I have to tell you: I now know just a little more than I ever needed or wanted to know about what is going on under your clothing and inside your ears. :)
4th March 2008 Quote
Comment: Karen (Karooch from Scraps of Mind) says
Sensational post Tom. I work in IT and we dream of a Utopia where a new development starts with half way reasonable (see we don’t ask for the World)business requirements.
So many hairy teddy bears get built. Sigh.
Anyway, I can feel a Stumble coming on so…gotta go.
5th March 2008 Quote
Comment: mogo says
When clients are overly vague, saying “oh, we don’t really know…” I start say “Hot pink and fluorescent green it is!” to get a reaction. Then the conversation becomes more useful. :)
13th March 2008 Quote
Comment: Thomas Stephan says
Hey Karen;
You’re right about IT — My day job has people who call it saying things like “I haven’t gotten a lot of email today - is the Internet working?”
A lot of people don’t realize that IT can often be the most creative department in the building!
13th March 2008 Quote
Comment: Thomas Stephan says
Hi and thanks for the comment, Mogo. A great way to break the ice with a hesitant client!
13th March 2008 Quote
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