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PROCESS Whether we’re creating a mark for a five star hotel, creating a community relations campaign for the visitor industry, or designing a package for a new line of sunscreen… experience tells us that the process remains virtually the same. Information • Know our audience. • Know what they want to hear (or see). • Know our client’s business. • Establish an agreement on realistic expectations. • Review the long-range goals including any planned expansion, marketing plans, proposed applications, etc. • Understand the guidelines and restraints pertinent to the communications program. • Visually audit both similar and competitive projects. • Interview the management. • Interview the audience. In reality, knowing what to say and what our audience wants to hear may be the most involved segment of the design process. Establishing Criteria Looking at the competition and the opportunities in the marketplace is like looking at a periodic chart of the elements. It gives us a fairly clear guide to positioning our product. If we apply to that a hierarchy of information based on what our audiences want to hear and what our clients want to say, we can develop a platform representing a middle ground that makes communication possible. Creative Exploration We wish Creative Exploration were as easy as staring out a window and visualizing something new. That’s not our experience. There are a number of definitions of creativity: • An insightful rearrangement of known elements. • Having a perspective on a solution that no one has seen before. • A novel association that proves useful. As Tim Conner once said, “The pioneers are the ones with the arrows in their backs.” Finding something new is never simple. Finding the conceptual expression of a logical argument can be as daunting as creating the original business model. But the excitement of seeing a new idea unfold is why we’re still in the design business. Implementation |
