Exercise: writing a brief

Hello again! For this exercise, we are learning about how to illustrate working from a brief and I am meant to find an illustration I like and write the brief for it. In case it’s not clear, a brief is the term used to describe a task in sufficient detail for the illustrator to do the work required.

So of course I started browsing for interesting and modern illustrations, adding to my Pinterest board collection as I go when I happened upon the set of illustrations by Design Lad for 2018’s World Vegan Day. Truly veg-tastic!

On my choice

Well first of all, I have been Vegan (ish) since 2017, and I didn’t even know there was World Vegan Day – 1st November, FYI! That will certainly make the start of November much more interesting for me. These 3D illustrations are playful, use solid and bright colours and remind me ever so slightly of my Play-Doh days (the last of which was actually Christmas 2019 with my little cousins). I also love the super-hero-esque concept of veggies taking on animal-based food products and kicking their ass! I certainly believe in the power of a plant-based diet and my veganism is mainly based on my humble contribution to saving the planet. I also very much disagree with mass-produced, anti-biotic pumped and caged livestock. It may not be feasible for the entire world just to stop eating meat and I certainly have a serious weakness for shellfish, but we should certainly eat much, much less of it and ensure its the good stuff – we are what we eat, as they say.

My proposed brief

Dear Mr. Design Lad,

Thanks again for your time yesterday. We very much look forward to working with you and thank you for your availability to work to our timelines.

As discussed, please find the brief to use as the basis of your illustration set outlined below. With only three months to go until the 1st of November, 2017, we would like to propose that you provide us with a mood board by mid-august, a first draft of at least five options by the end of September and the final product by 15th October.

Thanks for letting us know if this works for you. We strand ready to respond to any further questions you may have as needed.

Kind regards,

Joanne

Communications Director,
The Vegan Society

Context: The Vegan Society hosts various events to celebrate World Vegan Day on 1st November. As Veganism has become more popular, so too has ‘anti-veganism’ which can be seen in social media, television and politics and even in the workplace. We believe that this stems from a lack of understanding or awareness of the very many reasons why people increasingly choose a plant based diet, myths surrounding nutritional needs caused by misplaced marketing and branding by corporate lobbyists working for the meat and dairy industries, as well as a backlash against the feeling of inferiority or criticism which many people experience when exposed to vegans or discussions on veganism. While we respect everyone’s right to choose their diet, we would like to raise awareness on veganism with openness and without ‘shaming’ those that do not agree with this lifestyle. Rather than feed into what has become a fiercely political and controversial debate, we would like to introduce humour with playful and bright illustrations that provoke thought and exploration on the subject without pressure or negative connotations.

Content: We would like you to focus on animating and giving life to plant based and animal based food products, potentially pitting them off against one another in a humorous manner. We also do not want this to look like a specifically targeted campaign against obesity or other health issues, or body image etc. Thus please avoid any usage of any kind of human figure or shape and avoid political figures. Characters should be fun hero and anti-heroes.

Purpose: Raise awareness on Veganism and the Vegan Society in a light-hearted and playful manner, linked to the festivities around a day celebrated globally.

Intended audience: The public at large in the UK and USA. Thus please use food products that are easy to identify with from a Western Culture perspective.

Usage and dissemination: We require the images to be scalable up to 4m2 as we will be developing a set of products ranging from book marks to advertising posters and billboards.

Stylistic considerations and tools: We very much appreciate your style of 3D illustration and would like you to apply the same style. Our logo is white and we would therefore like to have bolder/darker background colour that would allow the logo to stand out when placed over the image.

Text: Images should be free from text. Our communication team will take the images and insert any text as needed depending on the product.

My thoughts

I really wish I had gotten this brief and came up with these brilliant illustrations! I didn’t find coming up with a brief hard – I write and analyse and plan so much for my current job that giving such instruction was intuitive for me. That said, clearly my challenge will be to actually respond to briefs in the future – and this is a great exercise for putting you in the shoes of the client!