Your BRIEF, should you choose to accept it?
“Do something cool, something iconic.”
“Disrupt the market.”
“Make it for a runner.”
That’s your footwear brief, vague, and full of risk.
We’ve all created or received briefs like these. I’m guilty.
A product leader once said to me, “Don’t burden my designers with constraints. They need unfettered freedom to create dope ideas.”
Yet for a creative, a brief without tight parameters is like being asked to cross a crevasse without an ice ladder. Get across the unknown, and be creative.
For a mountaineer, ice ladders are a thing of trust. These flexible metal frames offer a stable and secure platform to cross what would be impassable or difficult.
To cross is to be careful and deliberate. Yet they are also efficient and fast, considering the alternatives of chopping steps or finding alternate routes.
As the saying goes: “Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.”
