Latest / Design Darlings / Design Brief: Defining the Brief
Transcript
- Allie: Hello, darling. Ro Rich: Hello, darling. Allie: my goodness, it's Allie Miller, but doesn't sound like I have Robin Richardson with me today. How you doing there, bud? Ro Rich: buddy, I've I've got some kind of fall trick or treat and it's not treating me well. So in the spirit of my fall fog, let's keep it brief, shall we? Allie: Let's keep it brief. I will also add Robin is here off of her of her own volition, of her own accord. So thank you for joining us despite your despite Ro Rich: I'm well enough to stand up. It's okay. Allie: the ghouls and goblins immune system. Ro Rich: That are haunting my throat. So that's alright. We'll keep it brief for the people and what do you say? Should we should we introduce the folks to the idea of a design brief? Allie: Great segue. Yeah. A design brief is a a fundamental element of any creative endeavor, whether it's self-defined or defined by a client And so we wanted to kind of take that into the podcast. and moving forward it'll be sort of a nice little compliment to our longer episodes where we kind of really deep dive into the history of an object or a system or an experience. But in between we'll do kind of short little snippets, little tastes of things that are top of mind for us or topical. that we just can't let go of that we wanna, you know, pontificate on for a smaller amount of time. So with that, we are gonna our first design brief will be a definition of what is design brief. Ro Rich: So yeah, the design brief does have a long history in the field and it is something that helps structure the way you go about actually making a design. it's got a simple frame that is really effective for sending you forth into the world. a design brief gives you a problem, not a solution. It identifies Allie: Mm-hmm. Ro Rich: your audience, so tells you who the design should be aimed at. you should have a goal. So what happens if this design actually works? It gives you constraints, which are your budget, your time, materials, maybe policies, and then your measure of success. Sometimes these briefs happen off the cuff, on the back of a napkin, over a conversation. sometimes they're thought up in boardrooms or design labs where people are trying to come up with a brief that helps narrow down and capture the assignment. Allie: And as I was thinking about this, in my brain there's sort of two kinds of design briefs. There's Ro Rich: Mm. Allie: what I'm calling the sort of explorative design brief, where it really gives this larger creative prompt or maybe a philosophical or really squishy human problem that asks the designer. to just go for it. Like come back with the the most interesting, innovative, creative ideas. And then I feel like there's another side of the coin where there's design briefs that are more definition focused, where you're provided a lot of information and maybe the scope of the work is slightly more prescriptive. I think there's still creativity in constraint, but they're much more heavily constrained into the scope. you don't want to be asked to create a shoe and then come back with a flying car. and there's pros and cons to each, but that's kind of when I was thinking about this prompt of what is a brief. Ro Rich: I think what you're talking about is like almost a discovery brief, which is funny because the Double Diamond, puts the brief at the end of Discovery. And so I think Allie: Mm. Ro Rich: you can't write the brief until you've gone and learned a little bit about the space that you're in. And so those ideas and directions from Discover get analyzed and synthesized into that written brief. so it gives you Allie: Yeah. Ro Rich: a place to move from, but then you've also got those constraints on the other side. So it balances both parts of it. Allie: Mm-hmm. And I think Ro Rich: Mm. Allie: the former, the discovery ones are in like I tend to see those in, big hackathons or global challenges or things where I don't even want to say there's less accountability per se, but you're less likely to be accountable for having an end product or design that you could easily then put into production. Whereas when you have a a more defined brief, it's No, we need whatever you make to actually be usable at the end of this. Ro Rich: That also depends though too, because like the Sydney Opera House in nineteen fifty-six there was a competition that was launched, and there was a twenty-seven-page book with a brown cover. It was known as the Brown Book. And it had conditions of the competition, site photos, regulations, a site description, the site requirements, the building requirements, and a schedule of dates. If you wanted to compete, you had to pay a registration fee to receive it. And they got more than 220 entries from 28 countries. And the goal, build a national opera house on Benelong Point. the constraints were the site, building requirements, regulations, deadlines. But the cost within the brief was like, use sound judgment about the financial implications. However, this was a famously over budget building. So it's you know, they to your point, they didn't really give them a hard constraint on budget and look what happened. I mean, the building is iconic, so Is really is money an object when you're getting something so iconic that that's up to Allie: Is that Ro Rich: who's paying for it. Allie: So there's an interesting question that comes up then is Ro Rich: Mm. Allie: within design briefs, it's also how many people get access to the design brief is an interesting idea because When you have something like the Sydney Opera House and you Have an open call that anybody can design something. It then veers into the territory of speculative design and spec work, which is a very contentious topic Ro Rich: Mm. Allie: in the design world. if you have a design brief to then get the work, how much do you have to design before you are committed to a contract and you have that work awarded? versus a design brief where you've already been hired as a firm or an agency or an individual and then you're given the design brief but you have the guarantee of the work. Ro Rich: Yeah, but you also might have to reframe it. So here's your brief, and then you go get in there and you're like, girl, this is not your problem at all. But then you're stuck with this brief and this assignment that you're like, can we pivot? I think that's the tricky part. Who's giving you the assignment? And then do you trust them to give you the assignment in a clean easy enough way so that's tough. That's a tricky one, my friend. Allie: 'Cause that that's like one of those things where when I was in design school, they're like, Never do speculative work. Your time is valuable. Ro Rich: Mm. Allie: But is the act of filling out a brief or designing something speculatively for a potentially huge work, just to have even the concept in a portfolio, is it worth it even if you never get the money? Or do you say Ro Rich: Mm. Allie: I'm gonna give you a concept of a plan, a concept of an idea, but I'm not gonna design the idea until you hire me. And then we're gonna talk about the brief and then we're gonna like get into the weeds and then I'm gonna get you the design. Ro Rich: That's tricky because honestly asking the right questions is so critical to how you're gonna cut, like, measure twice, cut once. And then it's funny because we get called in a lot to ask the right questions and You go through discovery, maybe you reframe the question that the client is asking because it's written not focused on the right thing. There's an example I love. I have a friend she worked at this design firm and it was like Procter and Gamble employed more chemists than anybody in the world or something crazy like that. So they bring in this design firm and they're like, We want a new cleaning product. And they're thinking like a spray. And so the designers go out, they go do discovery. They go to people's houses with the request we want us you clean. And they'd show up and everyone would be like, butt my house is always so clean. And so they couldn't see anybody's house not be dirty. So one of the designers accidentally spilled some coffee grounds, wink nudge, and said, Allie: Mm. Ro Rich: no, how would you clean that up? And the lady took a paper towel and dampened it and sweeped it up and put it in the trash and they all went, and they all started scribbling. And that is how we got the Swiffer. So it wasn't that you needed a new chemical. You needed a different way to think about how you would clean. the behavior Allie: Yeah. Ro Rich: of cleaning. And so the brief was go make us a new cleaner, like in a bottle. And the real reframe was make us a product that helps people clean. Ta da. Yeah. Allie: I like that. Yeah, I've definitely been on both sides. I both responded to briefs, but then I've also written briefs that then people have had to respond to. And Ro Rich: Hm. Allie: it's been interesting because you write the brief thinking it's clear, as we all Ro Rich: Mm-hmm. Allie: do. And then you get the responses from, you know, very talented groups of people. And it's immediate. Like you can't you can't pinpoint necessarily why. But you immediately, as soon as you see those responses, you know right away, this company just completely missed the mark, or this company was Ro Rich: Mm. Allie: spot on. And there is a project where one company, it was a little ballsy, but they came back to us and they kind of were like, We're not doing spec work, but here's how we would respond to this. And here are the questions we think you left out, and here are the things that we would ask you as we move forward. And that's the company we ended up picking. Ro Rich: Nice. Allie: It wasn't necessarily a company who was able to quote respond to the brief with the best design. It was the company that said, Here's how we are thinking about the way that you're thinking. Here's how we're gonna interrogate this question Ro Rich: Mm. Allie: further. Here are the gaps that are preventing us from actually thoughtfully responding to this. And then that was ultimately the thing that that we were like, yes, we like the way that you are thinking about the problem. we felt like we were in safe hands. with this group as opposed to a group that came to us with quote the solution right away. Ro Rich: Well, I mean you just said it's the writing versus the reality. So you write something with a certain frame of mind and then when you walk through the steps of having to solve it, you come out on the other side and you say, here's the reality if we do a 360 look at it and then you think, that's a great reframe, or that's a that's Allie: Mm-hmm. Ro Rich: a great way to consider this. And so even writing the brief itself is such an important practice that you can't just get off the bat right away. Like that is something that you have to do as a designer and learn to do. that's why you hire a professional. There's these really great videos I've been seeing around graphic designers who the client comes back and they go, we want this now. And the designer says, Okay, that'll be this much money. And they No, no, no, you said we could have revisions. And the designer says, those are not revisions. Those are an entirely different direction. But Allie: Mm. Ro Rich: people don't they don't understand that. And so if you hire a designer, they're gonna they they can get you to where you want, but not everyone knows how to articulate what they're thinking, and so you're helping them get closer to it because of the way you're showing ideas and You're showing your thinking, but people once they see their mental model come to life, they're like, that's not yeah, that's not it. Wait. Allie: That's not what I wanted. That's not it. okay, so I have two design briefs that I like that I want to share with you. Ro Rich: Okay. Allie: And they're design briefs, but they're not design briefs. They're more Ro Rich: Okay. Allie: they almost veer into like brand ethos, but Ro Rich: Mm. Allie: not. Okay, so the first one the United Nations, their sustainable development goals. So these were voted on by all adopted United Nation members in twenty fifteen. Are you familiar with SDGs? Ro Rich: I'm not, so please educate me. Allie: Okay. So the sustainable development goals are essentially these very high level like humanitarian level goals to eradicate poverty by the year twenty thirty, these are the seventeen things that need to be addressed in society. So they're they're really big meaty things like zero hunger, education, gender equality, c sanitation, understanding the way that climate impacts. society, life on land. So how do we coexist with forafauna, And what's really cool is within the development community, these are sort of guiding principles that NGOs and nonprofits and government organizations build their programming off of. Business models, do they fundamentally support one of these goals? And what's cool is there are these kind of living, breathing things that on one end of the spectrum you have the Coca-Cola bottle, which is a very specific, discrete, famous design brief, that is for this one very tangible thing. On the other hand, you have these sustainable development goals, which are these more society level design briefs, but then you can create smaller briefs within that brief. But I I like it as a it doesn't have a defined output and the design brief itself cannot be solved by any one person or company or organization. It's truly like a global design brief. Ro Rich: Well it's got measures, so the output Allie: Yeah. Ro Rich: would be so basically the output are behaviors or changing behaviors or technologies in order to meet those metrics, essentially. Allie: Right. Ro Rich: And you figure out how to do that. Interesting. Allie: So I like that. one that's a more traditional to a design brief. is IKEA. So they have kind of principles within as they're building products. So three that I thought were really cool. One is basically you have to address a real life domestic pain point. So whether it's you're in a small apartment or a large home, is there like kind of like the Swiffer example, like is there very specific part about the ease of my living space? that I'm very specifically addressing. So just having a really clear objective I love. price first engineering. So the idea that is is the way you're building this the most cost efficient way and really taking out any fluff or superfluous material or design elements. And then the third one is the flat pack and logistics of the shipping. And so those three things together, like having a very clear problem, but both the way you're building it and then the way you're distributing it, doing that in the most efficient way possible. So really balancing the form and the Ro Rich: Mm-hmm. Allie: function Ro Rich: I like the IKEA one because I think it was Gillis Lundgren. he reportedly took the legs off of a table to fit into a car and the company was like, shipping assembly cost. That's Allie: Yeah. Ro Rich: you know, like how do you make sure that you that's the flat packing of it, right? That everything in IKEA has to be pretty flat packed so you can get it out of there in an easy way. I feel like that is problem first solving. it reminds me of the UK road signs in 1957. This is also like problem-first design framing. the road signs had been commissioned by different bodies, but the speed of modern vehicles is getting faster and faster in the 50s, made the signs very illegible and very unsafe. So this committee, the Anderson Committee, they toured Europe to see how other countries tackled it, and then Calvert and Kinnear tested their work. By making signs, propping them up against trees in Hyde Park, slowly walking towards them, and then evaluating them at speed on a runway from a pol and from a police car. And so that Allie: Mm. Ro Rich: was like their physical test for the signs and and figuring out if they were legible. And I think that's so interesting and fun. Allie: Yeah. Ro Rich: It's problem focused, right? I think one that everybody knows is the Dove campaign for real beauty. And that started in 2004. I feel like it's still going. Allie: Mm. Ro Rich: it and I don't know if it was the original brief or more of like a retrospective, but the the it was framed as that too many customers saw Dove as just a soap, even though they had all these other products that made up half of their sales. And so they wanted to raise awareness and sales across the whole range of what they had and reinvigorate the brand. the constraint was that it had a media budget that was only one fifth of a usual budget. For a personal care launch. only two percent of women believed themselves to be beautiful. And so their measure of success was to position obviously the product and the beauty is being synonymous with each other, and they wanted to have a 20% sales increase by 2005 across all of Dove brand. Allie: It's pretty audacious to for one campaign to have Ro Rich: Right? Allie: a twenty five percent increase in sales. But that Ro Rich: see if it's a Allie: campaign I feel like if you're a you're a woman growing up in the early two thousands, that campaign is lodged into your brain. Ro Rich: Yeah and I feel like it was empowering. Like I remember seeing it and going, this is different. This is great. Allie: Yeah. Ro Rich: Yeah. you know Allie: It coincided with a an era of social good marketing was happening that Ro Rich: It did. Yes. you know, we look at stuff all the time and we're like. How did that get made? Who decided to make that? And I want people to ask that question in the world. What was that design brief? And maybe thinking about those questions will make you a better design hound. We're designed. Allie: And when did we start a very lovely, well defined design brief? And then when did it go completely off the rails? Cause sometimes when designs come into the world and you say, How did that happen? It's because we started with really good intentions and then we just we just went sideways real quick. So Ro Rich: That's so funny. Allie: All right. So with that, again, we said we're gonna keep it brief. I think we should wrap it up. until next time. go find some good design in the world and report back to us. Let us know what you find. Ro Rich: Absolutely. Thanks, darling. We'll see you next time. bye. Allie: Okay, with that, cheers. time.