Starting a project is exciting! You’ve got your ideas together, have a rough idea of what you want and can’t wait to get stuck in. Or perhaps you’ve been stalling for a while and are finally ready to pick up the phone and make this happen.
We’re happy to hear it and we want to hear from you. But before we dive into anything too deep, and to achieve the best result, consider the following for a smooth sailing start.
The Big Who, What & Why
WHO are you?
If we haven’t already met, we want to get to know you! Describe your company, who you are, what you do. What’s your history? Who is your target audience? Have you singled out your competition?
Who are you? Why are you embarking on this journey? What do you want to achieve?
WHAT outputs do you want to achieve?
Having a rough idea of what you want to walk forward with gives us clarity on what we will deliver. It gives you expectations on what will be received. Creative projects vary in scope and depth and so it’s important to assess from the outset what we’re going to achieve.
Whether it’s the complete conception of not-for-profit awareness campaign with both digital and physical outputs, or a conservative brand refresh, we’d love to hear what you’re after. Attack this your way – a meticulous spreadsheet with desired outputs and required deadlines / organic free-flow conversation / whatever you feel most comfortable.
Maybe you’re not really sure what you need. You just know that you need something. A conversation is the perfect starting place.
WHY do you want to achieve this?
A deeper question arguably, but this is really important as it provides insight to your motives. For example, you might be wanting the brand refresh we mentioned above. Why do you want a brand refresh – is your current brand clunky, dull and uninspiring, perhaps it was hastily scrabbled together a couple of decades ago and has remained that way because it seemed to work at the time. Are you facing new competition? Do you need branding that will fully embrace your target market, and not just your loyal, day-one customers?
When we understand your why, it gives us a truer understanding of your vision, your expectations and where you see yourself going.
Practical Essentials
A trusted team
Choose several key partners who will aid in the decision making process. Be selective – too many opinions often delays the creative process and the unwanted challenge of trying to please all, or for everyone to have their “stake” in the output. It can be beneficial to include partners with different perspectives – for example a strategist, a creative, and a number-cruncher. Perhaps it’s just you, with your best friend acting as a soundboard.
Be confident that you value any invited opinions. Make sure you’re all agreed on your WHY before proceeding. We want everyone to have the same unifying goal moving forward.
Time to invest in the process
It sounds obvious but any projects we start, we want to finish. Its not uncommon to start a project with gusto and big ideas only for it to lose momentum and fall flat later. Good projects require input, time and mental space, so it’s important that you’re able to dedicate an appropriate chunk of precious this to your upcoming project.
Our part? We’ll do what we do best, following a strategic plan, with frequent milestone check-ins to ensure we work together efficiently and to deadline.
Existing work
For our designers to work optimally, it’s important that we have access to your existing creative assets – think logo files, brand guidelines, company videos, photography, design assets, copy…anything that might be relevant. Having access speeds up the design process and we avoid the inconvenience of hunting things down at a later date, or having to create new files that already exist.
Please have a good old search and put together your:
- Existing logo files, brand guidelines, graphic assets
- Existing design assets, such as; pamphlets, posters, business cards, marketing collateral
- Existing photos and videos
Collate everything in a folder you can upload for us and consider that job done!
Mindset Essentials
An Open Mind
All of the above are very important and crucial to starting your next creative project. But there’s one last thing that we can’t iterate enough.
The importance of going into this with a wide, open, non-blinkered mind.
While it’s great to have expectations of output, its important to understand that sometimes the journey doesn’t always go from A to B divergent-free. You will have a visual in your head of the end result. Picture this visual as a pencil-drawing on paper. This drawing will be accentuated in parts with heavier lines, other parts might require a little rubbing out and feathering. All in all, the same drawing is worked on and refined.
What we’re trying to say is, while we will work to achieve your vision, be prepared that the output doesn’t always end up the same as what you imagine. Whether it’s due to budget, resources, time or practicalities, being flexible and able to take a new approach may be necessary.
So… have a creative project in the pipeline? In the words of Walt Disney, “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing” and so that’s enough from us. We hope this inspires you to get stuck into your new project – give us a call to make a start on it together.
Photo by Adomas Aleno on Unsplash
