The client has requested that the student design business cards for their trucking company. Specifically, the cards should feature an image of one of the client's trucks as the background and include contact details. The brief is informal as the client filled it out in person with the student. It is important for the student to thoroughly read the brief to understand what is being requested and ensure they do not create something the client does not like. There are no major legal, ethical or regulatory issues with the proposed design. The project will provide learning opportunities for the student to develop new skills like business card design and working with clients.

1. WORKING TO A BRIEF
LO1
Alisha Harrison

2. CONTRACTUAL BRIEF
Definition
A contract is a legally binding document usually created between an employee and a client which they
sign. It outlines the duties that will be required by the company and how the company organises their
work, for example if you are wanting a wedding photographer to shoot at your wedding and they do not
show up even though they have signed the contract you could sue them and take them to court and also
get money back because it was down on paper it was legally binded but they did not show up.
Advantages
An advantage of a contractual brief is that it gives the company an idea of what the client wants to
achieve, the client knows what there getting and the producer knows what the client wants an
what is to be created on which date, which means there should be no issues with creating the
wrong product and on the wrong date, all the specifics are written down on a document.
Another advantage is that its offering protection from the legally binding document which will
protect them if for example the person did not turn up to do as they were asked/paid to do.
Another advantage is that it protects the person from having to do more work than they planned
for example if someone's wanting flyers and posters doing on that day but they didn’t say that
before hand on the contractual brief the worker would not have to do it because its not legally
written down.
Disadvantages
A disadvantage of a contractual brief is that the client may need a heavy workload from the
employer which will put strain on them for example with advertising a lot of creativity is required
and this is likely to be hindered if the client desires to receive written work as opposed to
graphical design
Another disadvantage is that the worker could get sued and its hard to get out of for example if
the worker ends up been poorly on that day they are still responsible for producing that project
because its written legally and its locked in for example they need to undertake their duties.

3. FORMAL BRIEF
Definition
A formal written brief is a document which includes necessary information which is needed
to create the project. The client provides a media company with a brief that simply
establishes the product in which they want to be made, and the client would have to sign
this and work with the client to get something which works for them.
The client are simply telling the producer what they want without going into too much detail.
Advantages
Advantages of a formal brief are, that its going to give you flexibility in terms of design
elements, time constraints and on budget too because the client has said simply what they
want and left it up to the producer to do most of the work so they can kind of choose what
they do and how they do it and what costs they can do it with, flexibility is a great
advantage for a formal brief.
Another advantage is that it lets the producer be more creative, this is relaxed on the
producer because they don’t have to do masses of amounts of work to impress the client.
Disadvantages
A disadvantage of a formal brief is that there is no security its not legally binding
therefor you are not necessarily protected if the product goes wrong or the
deadline.

4. INFORMAL BRIEF
Definition
An informal brief is a casual approach and less professional for undertaking work
for a client, this could typically be verbal and be a verbal agreement this type of
brief does not require any means of a written document there is literally just a
discussion like talking to your friends for example and saying do you want to go
out tonight its basically like that and you just turn up its an agreement but its not
legally binding or written down
Advantages
The advantages to an informal brief are that you can get sued or taken to court
because its not legally binding or written down you can do what you want the
ideas can change there is no formality to it.
Another advantage is that there is no set time as its informal but as long as its
done in sometime it is fine.
Disadvantages
A disadvantage to this is that’s it not a reliable way of making work and getting
paid could be a problem because nothing has been formalised or written down its
not always reliable and you could spend ages chasing up people for payments, for
example if you produce posters for a buisness and you forget to put key
information on this could be bad as you are giving the buisness posters with
wrong information on because you’ve forgotten about that business because its
not been written down anywhere.

5. CO-OPERATIVE BRIEF
Definition
This is where two or more, several production companies are employed to operate upon
a set brief which the companies work together in order to complete the project, more
than one company are hired to work on a specific brief, for example if you was making
a film you could have someone on the camera and someone of the recorder which
basically means working together to stick to a brief and create a product.
Advantages
Advantages of a co-operative brief are that people can work together to create a better
end product, its also quicker and the product/work can be under taken much faster as
there more people to do more than one thing at the same time.
There could also be more creativity involved because there's more than one person
involved with all different ideas.
Another advantage could be that because there's two or more people they have a
backup plan if someone falls ill the other people could pick up extra work from the
other person who's ill.
Disadvantages
A disadvantages to this is with more people been involved is that there could be
arguments and creative differences for example if one persons says an idea and
someone says I don’t like that idea I think we should do it like this and so on, it could
end up been an argument and not working well together,
Another disadvantages could be the payment at the end could not be split evenly and
you could possibly earn less than if you were to do it all your self.

6. NEGOTIATED BRIEF
Definition
A negotiated brief is where the two or more media companies are
working on a brief together and have conflicting ideas regarding a
project and they would have to negotiate the brief, the client and
the employer will formalise a brief before it is undertaken ensuring
that all parties are happy, the negotiation could involve the visual
style how its printed, weather there is any legal or ethical
constraints.
Advantages
an advantage of this is that it brings the ideas of the client and
employer together, it promotes synergy, creating a brief that is
suitable for the employer and the client.
Disadvantages
The disadvantage to negation can be arguments, you may have one
party who is unhappy and disagrees with the way things are been
done and the way the product is going, you may not get the correct
information.

7. COMMISSION BRIEF
Definition
A commission brief is where you have a large media company that hire a smaller
media company to create a product for them. The brief is negotiated between two
companies of the same time rather than an external client, for example bbc
commission a York tv company to create a documentary for them and there going to
use that documentary made by the York filming company for other services,
outsourcing your work for example asking a small company to make the work for
you and your client.
Another example someone owns a graphic design company who's too busy at the
moment but then you could get a smaller company to do the work for you are there
quieter and have more time to do it, this is a commission.
Advantages
An advantage of this is, that the independent production company will be paid for
creating the specific product, and may receive a fraction of the profit that is
generated by the product once it has been distributed to the consumer also known
as the target audience of the product.
Disadvantages
A disadvantage to this is that, if you have picked up work from channel 4 would you
get paid more or would you get paid more if you did the work as an independent
company, you would get paid more for been an independent company as the person
who has given you the work they would want profit for finding the work, so a
disadvantage is that you would’t get paid as much as if you did the work
independently.

8. TENDER BRIEF
Definition
A tender brief is when a client publishes that they need a media
product to be made, a production company then creates a brief,
proposal and a budget that is then pitched to the client,
Advantages
The advantages of a tender brief are that you have the flexibility to
choose the best proposal and full control of all the ideas that have
been suggested to them,
Disadvantages
A disadvantage is that if a companies idea is turned down it may create
a set back

9. COMPETITION BRIEF
Definition
Competition briefs are made available to all participating production
companies, each company completes a brief, all completed projects are
judged and the best is awarded the project and has the project published
it is often free to enter a competition the client only has to pay the
winning company,
Advantages
An advantage of a competition brief is that the company will have different
options to choose from which are all varied so they can pick the most
suited to their product/brand, another advantage is also winning it’s a
chance for anyone to win, it could also lead to more work which means
more income, another massive advantage is that its free to enter you
might win and you might not and it also gets you more work.
Disadvantages
A disadvantage is that people may not want to enter if the rewards are not
good enough and there's not enough publicity also in which case you are
forced to give the prize to the best one which may not be that good but
because they have won you have no choice to give a prize even though it
can be rubbish.

10. MY BRIEF
Which structure/structures will your client brief use?
Reference your reasons for choice/choices
The structure of my brief is informal as I printed the brief out
and took it to them to talk to me and fill it out at the same
time, I did email them the brief but they wanted it in person to
fill in and discuss with me what I am capable of creating for
them and their business.
My brief is also formal as they have given me specific things
they want me to create and design.

11. READING THE BRIEF
Why is important to thoroughly read your brief?
It is important to read the brief as it helps me to understand what the
clients business is and what they want from me, for example what they
want me to create/design for them and how they want me to do it, to
make sure I don’t create something they don’t like.
It is also important to read the brief because if the client likes what I
have created they may tell there friends that I am good at
understanding what they want because I have read the brief properly.

12. READING THE BRIEF
What is the nature and demand of your client brief?
My client has asked for a business card making, with the background
image a picture of their truck specifically one certain truck (because they
have a few trucks) for the background image.
They have also asked me to make it include contact details such as,
name, address and contact number.
They said they would like some doing but there is no serious time limit
just as long as they get done within a reasonable amount of time. The
business cards wont be too hard to make as my client is wanting a
simple design.

13. NEGOTIATING A BRIEF
Why is it important to discuss the brief with your client prior to
production?
It is important to discuss the brief with my client prior to
production because, I want to create a product that’s suitable
for them also to see if needs making clear and if there's
anything that doesn’t make sense.
It is also important to discuss the brief to ensure that the
product does not break any laws and that I completely
understand what has been asked of me.

14. NEGOTIATING A BRIEF
What are the advantages and disadvantages of employing
discretion with a brief?
Most briefs are allowed discretion with interpretation of the
information given, information supplied by the brief may be
vague or allow for your own interpretation of what has been
asked, using my own discretion allows me to add aspects to a
brief that I may think will be interesting.
However it can cause issues due to different interpretations for
example if the client has left an area vague because there not
sure how best describe what they desire then the producer will
interpret these details in his own way, this could lead to a
difference in opinion and the product may not be what the
client desired and consequently the client may refuse the
product.

15. NEGOTIATING A BRIEF
Are there any potential legal/ethical/regulatory issues with the brief’s
proposed product?
There are potential legal and ethical issues with the briefs proposed
product, there are a range of issues, for example copyright issues
because my clients trucks are quite popular and truck spotters look for
them to take images of them and to avoid this copyright I will be taking
my own images with the clients permission to take images of there
trucks to use for the purpose of their business cards which will avoid
any copyright issues.
There are also no legal or ethical issues with my brief because it appeals
to all farmers and hauliers everyone is treated fairly within my brief,
some people may be prejudice and discriminate my client because they
may have more money than others.
There are no regulatory issues regarding making business cards for my
client I don’t need to consider any bodies such as the ASA or
governmental regulations.

16. NEGOTIATING A BRIEF
Amendments you have considered to:
The Product
The product I am creating for my client will not need amending.
The Budget
There is no budget with my brief as I am doing this for free and I
have the resources I need available to me at college.
The Conditions
The brief will state the fee a production company will be paid for
the project. This may need to be amended due to being paid to
much or too little, although in my brief no one is been paid for
any work at all.

17. OPPORTUNITIES
What opportunities could this brief allow you to explore?
Self Development
This project will help me to develop my own skills in order to prepare
me for working with clients in the media industry, this project will give
me a sense of what its like to work in the real world rather than just in
college which is helping me prepare for later life.
Learning new skills
Whilst completing this project and this brief I will come across a new
range of skills for example how to make the perfect business card, I
will learn how to work with clients to full fill their needs, which is a big
skill needed in the media industry
I will also learn to organise my time and motivation to work on my own
for someone out of the business world so my work needs to be good
and done on time.

18. OPPORTUNITIES
Multi-skilling
The opportunities there are for multi-skilling are that as I progress in
making my product and researching the market I will learn how to do
separate tasks in one go rather than separately.
Contributing to a project
This brief gives me a chance to work with clients and the public which
gives me a sense of what its like to work in this industry.