Creative Direction

Creative direction is best defined as an area of brand development that primarily deals with the creative concepts that surround a brand. Part creative and part strategy, creative direction turns ideas into reality in the form of advertising campaigns, logos, and marketing collateral.

Creative agencies and designers sometimes struggle to define creative direction because it has such a broad scope. After all, creative direction uses the following elements to create deliverables:

• Art, referring to the visuals of the brand, including color semiotics and any line drawings
• Design, referring to graphic design principles applied to the initial art concept
• Strategy, referring to how that design concept will be perceived by your audience and how your brand is perceived because of it.

So whether it’s to create a flyer, a new logo concept, a new website development, a new campaign concept or just bringing an idea into the market, creative direction can be the missing core component needed to drive brand awareness across your project from conception to completion.

Creative direction is usually led by a creative director because of the training and expertise needed to ensure its success in both the design and strategy areas.

However, to get started with thinking creatively and strategically about your brand concepts, initial questions to consider may be:

1. Who are your customers?

Identifying both your desired target audience and your actual audience can help you to distinguish what types of people buy your products or services. This then enables you to design a creative concept that resonates more deeply with them.

2. What do you want your customers' perception of your brand to be?

What do you want your brand to tell your customers? Are you innovative? Creative? Market disrupting? Nostalgic? Warm? When aligned with your strategy, your art and design can communicate this image to your customers.

3. What are your brand’s long-term aims?

Identifying your long term aims can help you to build a strategy capable of reaching your objectives and delivering results. Goals could be as simple as selling more products, or as complex as repositioning your brand.

Every successful brand you can bring to mind has used creative direction. That’s what makes them instantly memorable, and sets them apart from their overlooked competitors.

Creative direction builds brands and connects them with their audiences by guiding, owning and nurturing concept creation and completion in a way that reinforces customer perception throughout their entire customer journey, and the brand’s own lifecycle.

Without having that winning concept supported by creative direction and its mix of both strategy and creativity, the visual presence and marketing activity of a brand will become inconsistent and subsequently, ineffective.

But it’s not just big brands who can benefit from creative direction. Big brands got to their memorable stage because they repeatedly took a strategic and thoughtful approach to their branding and creative concepts.