Design for Print and Web- Breaking Down A Project Brief

For this brief, we have to take a dead ISTD brief from either 2009/2010 or 2011 and answer its needs, demonstrating what we have learnt from the Designing for Web and Design for Print briefs.

Chosen ISTD Briefs

We had to select 3 briefs to start with from these years which we will crit within a studio session. I selected 'Type Factory', 'Mutton Quad' and 'On Yer Bike' because I felt that these briefs were a bit more specific than the others on offer as well as being based on Brand and Identity which is an area I like to produce work for.

To start with, we needed to take the 3 briefs printed out to the studio session and, whilst going through them, highlight each key word which I think is important.

Highlighted Briefs

As a class, we had to give out some of the words we had highlighted from the briefs we had chosen, coming up with a list of words which were bad;

- Connects
- Metaphorical Journey
- Broadest
- Fascinating
- Phoney
- Interesting
- Mojo
- Innovative Thinking

What made these words so bad is that they give no metric value for what they mean. You can't have a specific amount of fascinating, can you? The words are unclear, not telling us what the problem is and have been used because the judges don't know what they are looking for. In briefs, we need to try and get rid of these words which can usually be found in more broad briefs.

Following this, we had to select one of the briefs to focus on and answer a series of questions based on the chosen brief. I chose the 'Mutton Quad' brief to continue with because it seemed to be the most specific:

First 2 Questions

5 problems you want to solve and why?

• Who is the Target Audience?- Allows me to select my own area of focus in regards to restaurant theme/concept
• Restaurant Concept- What will be the unique selling point? Keeps it open int egads to applying it throughout the identity
• Application of solid typographic brand- Specific which allows for consistency within the brand yet can allow for experimentation
• Language Choices- Theme/ Concept of Restaurant will determine lexis and possible use of international language/word usage
• Will the design choices inform the food on offer or choosing the food on offer first inform the design?

5 Facts about the Subject and Content of your Brief?

• Typographically-themed
• Designing a Restaurant Brand
• Consider proposals for the interiors and exteriors
• No clearly specified type of restaurant
• You need to promote the restaurant

Next 2 Questions

5 Facts about the Audience?

• They are people who eat
• They are people who enjoy eating
• They go to Restaurants
• They have a disposable Income
• Local people who live in the area

5 Things I want to Communicate?

• Promotion of good Food and good Times
• The Theme of the Restaurant
• The Quality of the Food the Restaurant is producing
• How this Restaurant is a better place to eat than anywhere else
• Why people should be eating here (eg. Good Value for Money)

Things you do not know about this Brief?

• The Audience
• Restaurant theme (Type of Food)
• Location
• The type of Restaurant it is (e.g.. Fine Dining, Fast Food, ext.)
• Bespoke and Singular or a Chain of Restaurants
• Is it a type-themed Restaurant or is it a Restaurant using type to define its identity

Study Task:

From this, we have to re-write the brief making it as specific as possible for the next session.

Brainstorm for Brief

In order to do this, I did a brainstorm based on my brief to make it easier for me to focus down on wheat I want to go into. This made me think about the areas I would need to cover for a restaurant and what my audience could be.

I did some research into different typography terminology and found an interesting term. The term 'Swash' means a flourish which is put at the beginning of a word. This made me think of pirates and the sea so I have decided to come up with a seafood restaurant.

"Swash"
Typography Deconstructed (2010) "Swash" [Internet] Available from http://www.typographydeconstructed.com/swash/ (Accessed 27th November 2013)

I made some design sheets and spider diagrams to come up with my concept and main idea (See Studio Brief Design for Print and Web Blog Post) and from this, I re-wrote the given brief to be made more specific to this idea so that I can have a focused and narrowed down specific brief.

Re-Written Brief

This was a good exercise to do as it allowed for me to see how I could make a brief work for me and this is a skill which I can pass on to other briefs in the future- either college written or otherwise.