'A poor workman blames his tools' you know, just as a poor designer blames his brief. If you find yourself blaming the brief for your unsuccessful work, well you probably don't quite understand what a brief is. Now, I've never worked with a real client brief but as a student I can tell you about my understanding of design school briefs. They are not designed to mislead you, and the beauty about them (at least at my school) is that as long as you follow the brief it doesn't matter what your tutor tells you to do. I've learnt how easy it is to stray from the brief so please don't fool yourself into thinking your work is fine. I've seen a lot of people mistaking this for the brief being 'wrong' or 'miscommunicated'. It's truly as simple as going back and reading it over and over...and over. All the way throughout your project. Especially at the very end. Maybe read it three times in a row then. A little trick I like to use to make sure I haven't strayed from the brief is to conclude my research journal with an analysis of how I've answered each section of the brief. This means even if the tutors can't quite see how I've understood it perhaps they can find my reasoning in there. It's true that no matter how clear the brief is, people will find multiple ways of understanding and interpreting it, but I believe this is exactly how we can let our creativity flourish. Learn to challenge the brief, learn to play with the brief, but don't blame the brief for your work not being what was ordered. You just need to tackle it until you find your perfect interpretation. |