Creative brief
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Here's one from a freelance client:
Creative and Design Requirements
Martindale-Hubbell / Redbook Legal Milestone Timeline
Prepared by: Steve Geiger
Stream57, LLC
Created: 08/27/05Table of Contents
1.0 Document Revision History 3
2.0 Project Requirements 3
2.1 Existing Design, Specifications, and Guides 3
2.1.1 Client Style Guides 3
2.1.2 Client Resources and Examples 3
2.1.3 Mockups 3
2.2 Background 3
2.3 Usability Requirements 3
2.4 Customer or Market Needs 3
3.0 Vision of the Solution 4
3.1 Vision Statement 4
3.2 Major Features 4
4.0 Scope and Limitations 4
4.1 Scope 4
4.2 Limitations 51.0 Document Revision History
Revision Date Author Comments
1.1 08/27/05 Steve Geiger Rough Spec2.0 Project Requirements
2.1 Existing Design, Specifications, and Guides
2.1.1 Client Style Guides
Lawyers.com style guide must be observed and contains guidelines for appropriate font usage, color schemes and spacing: Lawyers_StyleGuide_041204.pdf
2.1.2 Client Resources and Examples
Client website should be consulted for an idea of corporate brand: http://www.lawyers.com/
Practice Development Center gives some other information: http://www2.lawyers.com/pdc/
2.1.3 Mockups
None at this time
2.2 Background
Martindale-Hubbell is launching a promotional campaign with the magazine Redbook. The cornerstone of this promotional campaign is an article in the November issue of the magazine (which hits stands Oct. 1) that addresses legal milestones at all ages. Lawyers.com will have a promotional link in the article and setup a page on their website to have fun and engaging content for Redbook readers to draw them in and keep them on the site for a while. Among the content that Martindale-Hubbell is producing in-house, they have hired us to create a quiz on legal questions (think Cosmo “Is he a good boyfriend” quiz) and a “when you need a lawyer in your lifetime” timeline that has a level of interactivity to it. Users will mouse over or click on the milestone in the timeline that they are interested in and a text bubble will emerge with a description of the milestone and why they need a lawyer.
2.3 Usability Requirements
Timeline actions and interactive elements must be extremely intuitive or have explicit instructions. Users will range heavily in technical comfort and aptitude, therefore the lowest common denominator should be observed.
2.4 Customer or Market Needs
Martindale-Hubbell, the client, needs to create some compelling and engaging content to keep Redbook readers on their site for as long as possible. The creative must be clean and fit seamlessly with the current Lawyers.com website and must also blend with the content that Martindale-Hubbell is authoring in-house.
Martindale Hubbell, the client, provides websites and web promotion to law professionals; therefore, all imagery and design should be consistent with the highly professional nature of this business.
3.0 Vision of the Solution
3.1 Vision Statement
Timeline text and milestones will all be authored by Martindale-Hubbell or other vendors used by Martindale-Hubbell. Milestones will be grouped by age bracket, most likely 20s, 30s, 40s, etc., and there will be approximately 2-5 milestones per age bracket. Each milestone will have a “title” and about 1-2 sentences of description of the milestone at which you need a lawyer.
Layout of the timeline must be horizontal and approximately 450px across, due to constraints on the Lawyers.com page layout, and must fit seamlessly within the Lawyers.com style guide. Each milestone should be graphically represented in a way that provides at least a hint of its content and, when moused over or clicked, will reveal or produce a text area that contains the description.
Design concept discussed with the client is clearly delineating the age group sections and using icons for each milestone (house for mortgage contract, baby for adoption, etc.). When icons are moused over, they produce a text bubble that displays the textual content related to the milestone. Scope of this project is based on this concept, but other design and execution concepts are welcomed.
3.2 Major Features
1. Age Groups: The main navigational element of the timeline Flash piece. Cleary marks the separate age groups and classifies the milestone icons within each group. Must have a clear navigational concept and be able to return to the main view to select another age group.
2. Milestone Icons: A graphical representation of each milestone that is on the timeline. Each Milestone Icon should give the user a good idea of what type of subject matter the milestone refers to prior to mousing over it and reading the text.
3. Text Areas: The description of each milestone which appears when users interact with the Milestone Icons.4.0 Scope and Limitations
4.1 Scope
1. Background Design
The design of the timeline background will need to be closely governed by the Lawyers.com style guide. All colors and textual content will need to be straight from the guide and fit well within the current look and feel of Lawyers.com. Background should include some engaging detail and clearly mark the basic framework and age groups for the timeline.
2. Icons
Icons will be crisp, detailed representations of the milestones. Each milestone type will have an icon to properly represent it.
a. Icons TBD on final content. See enclosed content for icon concepts.4.2 Limitations
Timeline should be authored in Flash. Comps can be provided in JPG or vector format.
Layout must be horizontal. Actual pixel dimensions are roughly 468 pixels wide (from client).
Design aspects must be governed by Lawyers.com style guide.