What is it exactly?
A creative brief is a document that defines the project and succinctly describes how each component of the problem will be solved. It provides a clear framework for the creative process and should be used to evaluate design iterations throughout a project’s duration. For many firms, creative briefs are a multi-page document containing many paragraphs of text describing the client’s market position, assignment and project goals. Our creative briefs are simpler yet go further in order to prepare our clients for creativity. They usually take the form of a one-page chart, making it simple to reference and easy to understand at a glance. No one will read a brief with too many words and the primary goal of uniting the client and creative team will be lost. It is often a project in and of itself.

Excerpt from a sample brief
In order to understand how a creative brief directly affects the resulting creative, let’s take a look at parts of a sample brief. Note that the company name and specific references have been removed.

This brand is asking for a packaging redesign. The company has a complex product line with multiple categories along with a standard and premium level offering. They are requesting that multiple design directions be explored but haven’t considered how or why each direction might be different. Here’s a sampling of the core sections:

1. Overall Messaging and Market positioning
-Direction 1: Product copy will reinforce a nationalistic message, positioning the brand as classic and all-American with offerings for everyone.
-Direction 2: Product copy will emphasize the advanced technology in the products, positioning the brand as young, technical and sleek.

2. Overall Mood and Tone
- Direction 1: An evolution of the existing packaging, feels rough and earthy. (more classic)
-Direction 2: Sleek, modern, and techy (more contemporary)

3. Category Coloring
In both directions, color will be used to delineate categories.
-Direction 1: Category colors will be played up, taking over the majority of the package.
-Direction 2: Overall brand colors will be emphasized while category colors will be used as accents.

4. Graphics and Imagery
-Direction 1: Photography will communicate the product’s purpose.
-Direction 2: A bold graphic language will communicate the purpose and technology within the product.

5. Basic vs. Premium
-Direction 1: Premium products will have foil-stamped accents, and the color scheme will remain consistent with the basic packaging.
-Direction 2: Premium products will have a very different color scheme that contrasts with the basic packaging.

The Benefits
Creative briefs allow for an efficient process that saves time and money by ensuring that strategic objectives are investigated during the design phase. This is very different from the trap that many designers fall into: creating endless minor variations on color and typeface (just for the sake of it) and calling these “different directions.” This is not a true exploration and does little to propel a project forward.

In the above example, I’m sure you can see a clear roadmap starting to emerge. Design will not magically come out of thin air or be subject to the personal whims of the designer, but will be rooted in the defined criteria. Of course there are times to veer off course and break the rules. The creative brief should be open enough to allow for this. It is not meant to stifle creativity, but to provide healthy structure for the design exploration. From this seemingly dry list of items, groundbreaking, beautiful visual design can and will emerge!

“Is having a blog and an email newsletter redundant?” a colleague recently asked. MSLK believes absolutely not. If utilized correctly both will draw from the same content plan, but your email newsletter helps you stay top of mind with your existing database while your blog is designed to help reach a larger network of followers on social media, including introducing your brand to perfect strangers. Here’s how: A blog is the cornerstone for new, relevant, and on-going content on your website. As we’ve outlined in our article Why Should Businesses Blog?, a blog is a place to tell all of the layers of your brand story engaging your brand fans and followers across varied media, including social media platforms.. As we outlined in our article, Balancing Search Engine Optimization and Blog Content a blog is also a great tool for increasing your website’s overall organic search engine optimization. Articles and key phrases used consistently throughout your blog can help new prospects discover your brand when they are searching for content relevant to your business.

MSLK employs these techniques and each week we receive inquiries from new prospects with eminent design projects as well as future prospects would like to join our mailing and keep in touch. In this manner our blog is helping us meet new prospects who are often late in the buying cycle. These prospects know exactly what they are looking for and are doing very narrow, specific keyword searches, which makes them ultimately more qualified leads.

Our email newsletter helps us maintain relationships with potential prospects who are not quite yet ready to buy. These prospects may be colleagues we have met in person through industry events or have joined our mailing list through our blog. They find our expertise relevant, but do not yet have an appropriate project for us. Our monthly email newsletter helps us stay in front of these prospects in order to remain top-of-mind when they are ready.

For our newsletter content we feature a mixture of topics from recent blog posts, to case studies of recent projects our prospects may be interested in. It is not a duplicated effort because in today’s crowded media environment many people on our mailing list aren’t checking our blog regularly. Our email newsletter is an easy and effective tool to share with them the most helpful and relevant content they may have missed.

Because we are sharing content that is useful, MSLK is happy to report that we average a 30% engagement rate with our emailers. In addition, the articles and content we feature in our emailers receive the most repeat traffic on our blog, Often when we meet with a client or prospect in person they will mention content recently featured in a newsletter. It’s a great conversation starter and a fabulous way to engage with your existing mailing list.

We’re pleased to announce that our new packaging and strategic brand development for Wigwam Mills has just been picked-up by Packaging of the World — one of the most prominent packaging design website showcasing the most interesting and creative packaging work worldwide. Its audience includes packaging designers, graphic designers, advertising agencies, students and manufacturers, garnering close to half a million impressions every month.

Check it out now!

In today’s crowded marketplace, consumers and retailers don’t necessarily need another product in their lives. However humans are natural storytellers. We will always have room in our lives and on our shelves for brands that tell us something interesting .

For over 14 years we have helped brands find their voice in today’s crowded market and send that unified message across varied media. We also recognize that today’s busy consumer doesn’t read. Often a picture — or better yet — a movie is worth a thousand words. This 90 second reel of our work in fashion and beauty showcases a few of the stories we’ve created.MSLK does our best work when we’re helping brands creatively bring clarity to their stories — from overall brand positioning, to identity, packaging, retail experience, websites, and social media campaigns. We find this variety of media invigorating. Today’s multichannel environment is what keeps our perspective fresh, and our creative exciting. We view each medium as simply another tool to help us reveal additional components of the story and unique brand voice.

What is most important is that we understand the level of customer engagement with each medium and reveal your stories within stories as the interest of the customer intensifies. Fashion and beauty brands rely heavily on these stories. Beyond practical needs, a clothing or accessory purchase also fulfills an emotional need.

Shopping is therapeutic, and the process of finding and obtaining the perfect item should be as gratifying as actually wearing it. When women purchase beauty products, they look beyond the quality of the merchandise and evaluate the all-encompassing aura of the brand. This includes the entire brand identity — the product itself, the packaging, the retail environment, and even the website’s online shopping experience. Beauty is part of our daily regimen and today’s conscientious consumers want performance, health and beauty from the inside out, without harm to others or the planet.

We would love to help your brand tell your unique story.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=D84AH-_EQco

MSLK Creative Director and Co-Founder Marc S Levitt was quoted in a recent Atlantic article, speaking about the design profession’s critical — yet largely unsung — role. The article aims to draw parallels between wide-ranging professions from fact-checkers to anesthesiologists, describing them the “Invisibles.”

Citing examples ranging from book design to the now-infamous Palm Beach County “butterfly ballot” in the 2000 presidential election, Levitt describes the careful role designers play in shaping others’ content:

While some may think that the best design always grabs our attention, Levitt counters that great design often shouldn’t call attention to itself. “I’m not as concerned with prettying things up as I am with the end user being engaged in the right way.”

The article seeks to draw a connection between various professions, finding common traits:

Meticulousness, savoring great responsibility, and seeking only internal satisfaction are a trifecta of traits—a near antithesis of our societal ethos of insouciant attention-cravers—as a culture we’d all do well to follow.

Full article, by David Zweig, can be read here: http://mslk.co/zFPIm2

Image-based brands such as fashion, beauty, photographers, and artists will love Pinterest, a new social sharing platform dedicated to “connecting everyone in the world through shared tastes and the ‘things’ they find interesting.” Users create image boards on topics ranging from home, to travel, food, fitness, beauty, etc. They then find, follow, and share with friends who have similar interests.

Think of Pinterest as your virtual tack board. Remember the cork board you used to have over your desk? Instead of clipping and tacking physical inspiration, Pinterest allows you to keep track of all those virtual bits of inspiration you come across online everyday. Pinterest comes complete with a browser extension that makes pinning a snap. Simply click on the “Pin It” tool when viewing any standard web page and every image or video on that page can be added to your profile with two clicks. Users are encouraged to add a note to the image, and anyone can add a comment to it at any time. More importantly, the image is saved with a link to the URL of the original source. Goodbye long, scrolling lists of “Bookmarked” pages you can’t remember why you saved in the first place, Hello, Pinterest.

Image-driven brands will find this platform perfect for their social media outreach. No need to feel pressure to have a lot of content; beautiful images are once again worth a thousand words. Pinterest users are searching for inspiration for their hair, for their homes, for their lives. Users are encouraged to pick up inspiration from people they follow and “re-pin” it. Creative groups like MSLK can even create shared boards that allow multiple users to post to the same board. We are currently using Pinterest to gather inspiration for an upcoming project.

If you maintain a personal Facebook profile, you can login to Pinterest with your Facebook account. (Note: you’ll have to request an invitation to join, as Pinterest is currently operating with a waiting list for new members.) The benefit of using the Facebook connect is that your “Pins” will automatically feed to your Facebook profile, and although this feature currently needs a bit more development, the potential looks promising.

Speaking of future potential, Pinterest currently works best when you are pinning images already uploaded/hosted online. For brands, this is a great way to drive traffic back to your own website or blog where the images are already hosted. However, we found this a bit annoying for individuals looking to upload new content. You can upload photos from your computer, but the interface is cumbersome and slow. For those with iPhones, there is currently a Pinterest mobile App which makes shooting and uploading a bit easier.

Happy Pinning! Follow us at pinterest.com/sherikoetting and pinterest.com/marclevitt.

Steve Jobs was not a designer, at least not in the traditional sense. In fact, there was little he did do that was traditional, in any sense of the word. Having just finished his biography, Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, I have a new-found respect for the man who transformed not only the world of computers, consumer  electronics, music, movies, etc… but also had a profound effect of the lives of creative professionals — graphic designers in particular.

The book has countless tales of Steve Jobs’s quirks, tantrums, and various eccentricities (I stopped counting the number of crying tantrums somewhere around 10…), but what it makes clear is that he knew what what he wanted and would stop at nothing to get it. He demanded the best of everyone, and showed people the impossible could be done… while always staying ahead of the curve.

Much has been said of Jobs before and since his untimely death on October 5th, 2011. I would like to take a moment and write a few thoughts about what I’ve learned from Steve Jobs:

Work with the best people
Throughout the course of his career, Jobs noted that poor performers drag the whole team down. There’s simply no point dealing with sub-par players. As an employer, surround yourself with the best… you’ll benefit, as will they. For us, this can also be applied to clients. No use spending time trying to convince the brilliance of your design if they’re incapable of appreciating it. Working with the best led Jobs to seek out legendary designer Paul Rand to design the NeXT logo.

Follow your passion
There’s no point working on things that don’t interest you. Period. This goes for designers as well as clients. There’s nothing worse for a designer than to work hard for something when you know the client doesn’t place much value on it.

Every detail matters — even the ones you can’t see.
Years ago, I remember buying a G5 Tower and adding RAM to it myself, marveling at the innards of the machine. I called over Sheri to show her the inside of a computer, and we were both transfixed. I have no idea how computers work, really, but was awestruck at the organization of the circuit boards, processors, the way that the fans could be slid in and out, and such. This turns out to be a classic Jobsian trait: everything matters. Design is not a surface affair, it’s the compete integration of inside to outside, hardware to software, etc. As designers, we understand this intrinsically from the detailed proposals we write at the outset of a job, to the care that we take in preparing files to send off to the printers and developers. Every detail counts, and the craft you put into things shows through.

Form over function.
This is actually completely counter-intuitive, especially for a maker of gizmos… why wouldn’t you simply build the best product, who cares what it looks like? Yet that’s not the way it works. The very first Macintosh — which was gorgeous to look at and intuitive to use — was woefully underpowered. Jobs knew that if something is not intriguing, it’s never going to garner the attention to pick it up in the first place. This applies to graphic design and advertising: if it’s not compelling, no one will notice you. Of course, if the content isn’t good, it won’t succeed. Jobs rarely disappointed in this regard. (The original Mac was in fact underpowered and had poor sales — a catastrophic mistake that Jobs would never make again).

Focus is the most important thing a company can have.
When Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he was baffled at how engineers had run amuck with endless variations of mediocre Macs. He finally asked people, “What would I tell my mother to buy?” a question no one there could answer. Then he drew a grid on a white board with 4 quadrants: Consumer/Professional/Desktop/Portable. He forced the company to simply focus on the best product for each of these, which produced the iMac.

For us, focus is equally important. We must balance the right mix of clients to take on. We need to maintain our promotional efforts with the same vigor and enthusiasm as our client work. We set yearly goals by which we measure our progress. We know which projects are best to take on, and which to pass on. We’ve seen how colleagues try and take on the world and do it all, only to implode due to their lack of focus.

“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”
I love this quote, and think I will use it to tell all our new hires what to expect at MSLK. We definitely embrace the notion that great work is not a far-off thing in the distance, but something that is expected.

“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
This is MSLK to a “T” — we spend countless hours stripping away the superfluous in order to get to the essence of any message we’re communicating, whether visually or in creating a campaign message. Jobs understood that making things appear simple and easy takes complex and hard work.