Update: A Simple Design Brief [From John Rushworth's Interview]
After written the brief above, I read an inteview with John Rushworth in the book, Profile: Pentagram. I love how he brings such amazing clarity to the process, pure genius!
so, here's the design brief approach, with quotes taken from the interview.
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To begin with start with a clean slate. Spend time asking lots of questions and getting an understanding about the product.
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Rushworth sees the role of designer, as almost akin to that of a psychoanalyst, people who can come in and get to know a product better than the product knows itself and thereby help it to come to a sense of its own identity.
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now answering this fundamental question.
Who are you?
-- What is your identity --
What is special about this product?
What gives this particular ready-made meal or brochure or restaurant charm or uniqueness?
this is the most important part. Defining the product's personality, what are the product's distinctive virtues.
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there is clearly a strong and identifiable philosophy behind all of Rushworth’s work. That philosophy is one that places responsibility to the personality of the product way above the promotion of any individual stylistic quirks.
Rushworth has a firm faith that every product, like every person, will have something special that one can say about, but he’s under no illusion that the distinctiveness will be easy to find. And yet a good designer will have to make the eventual design solution seem easy, natural, and inevitable.
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