Designers, copywriters, illustrators, cameramen and other creatives are always challenging jobs. Not everyone can fit their creative process on time and on budget and see what result to expect from the first time. From the idea to the release there is a huge chain of tasks, and we will tell you how to build it correctly so as not to delay the deadlines and achieve a good result for the client.
These mediocrities have been doing an unknown thing for a week, missed the deadlines, speak their own language about some useless things. – this is the typical speech of a person who has incorrectly built work with a creative group or professional designer, and they have incorrectly built work with a client. And this is what customers mostly fear when they start working together on a creative project, a video or something more ambitious – an event.
Today, The RGB Idea Group is a cohesive organism, a natural system and environment in which everyone realizes their creativity and ambitions. It has not always been like this for us, and we would like to show by our experience that this market recognizes the best and real ones. On the example of one of the large projects for MusicBox, we will show the process and result of collaboration. So that you once again think about what is the reason for the creative crisis, why the deadlines are burning, and your customers are unhappy. Why team members struggle to create second-rate work. And found solutions for themselves.
The coolest idea will be sunk by a bad team
The most unique thing about the agency is the people and the chemistry in which they work together. Good people are more important than a good idea. It all started with a team, but not immediately it was one where you are free to give yourself to impulse and creativity.
A bad team is one where there is a hierarchy, where you are not understood and accepted. Where they don’t really know what you are inside, how you live and where you aspire. Where everyone pursues some of their side goals that do not relate to the creative flow.
In a good team, you do not need to fight, fight, you can easily say what you want – the other person will pick up and do even more than you imagined. Here everyone has his strong side, and he applies it to the common cause. This is how the handwriting of the team is built – when you look and you can guess that this is the work of one agency. When you have both pain and joy, and crisis, and recovery, and one head for two, and complete disagreement.
Team interaction on an example project for MusicBox
We needed to prepare the style of the VI Real MusicBox Awards. With this project, we did not want to do anything from what was. The source materials did not fit our soul at all. And we took the risk, because the project was interesting and gave a certain monetization. We did not ask for payment for it, it was an image story that gave us more than we expected.
It was necessary not only to complete the task, it was necessary to satisfy the different departments of the working group of preparation for the event. Sometimes drastically different people respond to their requests and do it in an irregular schedule. It so happened that at that time we worked in different time zones – America, Russia, Ukraine.
The main goal in a creative project is to work with the design department in such a way that the TOR is as clear as possible.
To come up with a breakthrough idea, you can’t look for references on the Internet – drive synonymous rows into Google or Pinterest. You can catch inspiration yourself, without limiting yourself to a ready-made solution: close your eyes and see the very idea. After all, in fact, everything was created a long time ago for us, you can only pass the elements through yourself, your experience and feelings – and the output will be an original purchased product that remains in memory and in history. After all, an idea is a cost option. We create smart creativity – these are non-standard ideas that solve problems.
There is a creative team in the form of designers, motion designers and video production who work as follows:
- An idea is created by a creative person – 1 or 2 people
- It comes to the designer, he interprets it and goes in search of a font solution and identity. And each picture/mockup has its own message and its own solution.
- You can choose a color solution yourself – the main thing is to give a real direction about the proportions of the layout, to say about the nature of the font (strict, minimalistic, comic-like, etc.). The task is to direct the designer so that he catches the mood and understands what you want to get from him in the end.
- It is more difficult with the identity – here you need to convey the mood and express emotion, to become unconscious for the consumer. You need a clear technical specification in accordance with the tone of voice of the brand and the message – is it musical, progressive, selling? Depending on this, an identity is formed.
- If you want to get a good result, it is better to depict all this schematically.
The key to the success of the project is to feel the same, at least the mood and images.
- Then the designer makes sketches, and you edit the layout.
The rule of thumb is if you are creating a layout and have doubts about it, you need to look at it both in color and in black and white. Then you clearly understand what information is read and what is not, what catches your eye, and what elements you still need to pay attention to. We do this trick often and it works.
- You don’t delay. When the organizers had an overlay and the program changed, we had to redo all the nominations and video production for screens in 2 days. And to make it so that they are reproduced without bugs. It was a moment of absolute time management, completely focused and completely understanding the team. And only this did not lead us to failure.
- When you yourself are satisfied and believe in the product, you can show it to the customer. If you doubt what the designer sent you and just send the work to the client, he will never buy it. There will be problems and showdowns.
Project handover
With this project, the reaction was one that warms the soul of every creative. In addition, we were very trusted. This is an exception, this is not always the way the workflow is built. When you like everything the first time.
We managed to capture the mood of the event and convey it in small and large forms. We have generated a new identity in the form of a sound gradient wave. This image gently formed the basis of the entire design content of the event. Posters with artists, the style of the figurine itself, art objects, outdoor advertising and video production.
This was just the case when we were fired up with a task. And in gratitude, we received incredible impressions – a walk along the red carpet. The presentation of an award from the stage of Crocus City Hall, work with a large media holding, heart-warming reviews, interest from the press and a reputation that will remain with us.
There are no difficulties with the client when:
- you conveyed that design vision is a kind of art that you pass through yourself;
- you have a vision and skills, you can infect a client with an idea, open up new facets of reality for him;
- you make an outgoing stream – first you give – then there will definitely be an incoming one;
- you are passionate about the project, even if the client does not have the opportunity to pay. You do the work from internal motives and get value not in money;
- you do not play – the client immediately sees when you are not sure. And he sees when you are organic, carried away by his task, then he is carried away with you;
- you submit for consideration not 15 concepts, but one – and you are sure of it.
When a customer doesn’t buy
If you are not a creative, but a simple intermediary between a client and a designer, you are literally in the market. You sell here, you buy there, and you send files by mail. You will always have problems. Because you can’t convey the value of what your design department does. And you cannot clearly convey to the department what the client wants – not just to hear him, but to understand what he can use in the future.
