Working to a Brief LO1

Richard and Robyn

Contractual BriefDefinition: A media company will sign onto a contract set by a client which includes a set task and a set fee. These briefs are usually formal & will be used in formal situations. An example of a contractual brief would be a brief between a wedding photographer & its client (the couple getting married).

Advantages: An advantage to this kind kind of brief would be the fact that once something is agreed on, it is legally biding & the client cannot change what they said they would give you/what you can do with the project. A written contract is more formal than just a verbal one & can be used in court, whereas you cannot show a verbal agreement (as it is verbal). You can actually see the work you will have to do & you can go down it like a list, which you cannot do with an informal contract.

Disadvantages: Legal action will be taken if the contract is breached, therefore a contract must be read carefully before being signed. Another reason why the contract must be looked at carefully is because of the fixed set fee. Sometimes you may find you need a larger budget after you have signed the contract. This should have been negotiated earlier on when discussing the contract. Another disadvantage to this kind of brief is that changes cannot be made after you have agreed and have signed the contract.

Formal BriefDefinition: A formal brief is a type of brief that usually shows what product the client wants to be produced. This will also usually feature only necessary requirements to complete the product. An example of a formal brief would be a written and signed brief between a client and the employee.

Advantages: Because the brief only includes necessary requirements, more information can be added during our negotiations with the client. Another advantage to a formal brief, compared to an informal brief, is the fact you can go back & look at what has been stated & work from it. Another advantage of a formal brief is that it is professional which is useful for both the client and the company that has been given the brief.

Disadvantages: Although you may think a formal brief would be a legally binding piece of documentation, due to the fact it is a formal brief, sometimes you will find it is not. Another disadvantage is that once it has been signed & initial negotiations have taken place, it is incredibly difficult to get things changed on the brief (that is one of the reasons why it is so important to read the brief carefully & discuss it at the very beginning).

Informal BriefDefinition: Usually a verbal agreement between two parties that will not feature a contract or any legal/written documentation, unlike a formal brief. The agreement will usually feature a task the client wants you to do in very simple terms, which can then be discussed. An example of an informal brief would be a family member asking you to do something for them.

Advantages: With an informal brief, it is very easy to discuss & negotiate the outcomes of the task with the person straight of the bat, compared to a formal brief. Another advantage of an informal brief is that there is less pressure on what you have to do as the tasks can always be discussed.

Disadvantages: Although it may be easier to discuss, none of this is in writing. This makes it very risky business because there is nothing in writing for either sides of the party to look back to if a mistake is made. Not legally binding, just like some kinds of formal briefs. This could lead to problems such as pay & miscommunications between the client and the employee.

Co-Operative BriefDefinition: This is when two or more production companies will work on a specific brief, set by a client. The brief will be completed by both companies. An example of a co-operative brief is the Nebraska Woody Florals which is a non-stock cooperative this is owned by many farming families. They all sell them together.

Advantages: This could decrease the workload one company would have to do. It would also allow you to work with your advantages as you would expect them to be good at your disadvantages.

Disadvantages: Working with another company will more than likely lead to some disagreements that will need to be negotiated. This will have to be negotiated with the client & the other company. You may not get your own way. The chance of this is higher now than if you were just working with the client. The money you receive may also be decreased because the other company/companies will also need a fare share.

Negotiated BriefDefinitionA negotiated brief occurs when two or more media companies competing for the project come across some areas of disagreements between themselves about the brief. The aim of a negotiated brief is to satisfy every party involved in the production by compromising with everyone. AdvantagesAn advantage of a negotiated brief is that the project is more open to suggestions from involved parties and gives a way for all those involved to put in ideas which can be developed into making the product better. An example of this could be that one person believes a picture should be placed in the centre, whilst another person may think that it should be to the left. An agreement will have to come & hopefully it will be the better overall idea.DisadvantagesA disadvantage of this is because a negotiated brief, arguments and strong disagrees can occur as it is opened to be discussed. In some cases, some disagreements lead to contracts being broken.

Commission BriefDefinition

A commission brief is where a large media company hire or employ a smaller, independent media company to produce the final product for them. After the project have been completed, the larger company will use the product and sell it on to a client who will then pay money to the larger company who would split the money they make with the smaller, independent company who actually made the project. AdvantagesAn advantage of this form of brief is that it means the larger company don’t do much work, apart from finding a suitable and reliable independent company, but the money made is split equally. DisadvantagesThis type of brief could potentially be the cause of arguments as it is not negotiated. Also, when the product is created, again because it isn’t negotiated, the client could change their expectations and the product could not be to the standard expected, meaning both companies are out of pocket. As the work is being passed down to another company, miscommunications could occur more often.

Tender BriefDefinition

A tender brief is where several prospective contractors provide and estimated cost and a description of how the product may be produced. (wiki.answers.com)Advantages

An advantage of a tender brief is that it will get several different ideas to put into perspective which offers a wider range of negotiating without using a negotiated brief. It gives the client more than one choice to chose which contractor they want use. They can choose the one that follows with what they're looking for e.g. costs. DisadvantagesA disadvantage of this sort of brief is that it is easy and very simple for the client to back out without much or any form of notice which can set the company back in business as work is getting harder to find.

Competition BriefDefinitionA competition brief is where a client opens their brief to a range of different companies who can then pursue in making the product then presenting it to the client who will then chose the best, most appropriate product and pay the company who made it the money.Advantages

The advantages of this form of brief is that it opens up a range of different products that the client can chose from.DisadvantagesA disadvantage of this is that if the companies competing do not get the job, they will have wasted a lot of time and possibly money on something that they did not get, but that comes with the business. Another possible problem is that the company eventually chosen may decide to not actually go along with plans they said they were going to do, this can then be bad for the client as they are not getting what the expected.

My Brief

We will be using a formal, contractual brief. What makes this brief formal is the fact that it is written. What makes the brief contractual is the fact we are working for a client & have signed onto a formal brief. Within this, as we are a pair working together, there will be negotiations between us.

Reading the BriefIt is important to read your brief for a number of reasons. •There will be legal action against you if you breach the contract.•Reading the brief before you have signed on to complete the work is

important as you can only negotiate the brief beforehand. Once you have signed to do the brief you are obliged to do it, no questions asked.

•If you end up completing work that does not 100% follow the brief, you may end up not getting paid & legal action may be taken against you.

•If you have anything to add to the brief & the client agrees with it, make sure it is in writing otherwise they may change their mind half way through & there will be no physical evidence to what or what hasn’t been agreed on/negotiated.

Reading the BriefWhat is the nature of the Vegetarian Recipe Cards brief?We are expecting to create 8 recipe cards for the client. We are being asked to specialise in the layout and style of the recipe cards.

What is the demand of the Vegetarian Recipe Cards brief?They state in the brief that they demand that:• ‘as a general rule we give strong preference to recycled paper and vegetable inks’ 

•‘We tend to use 350gsm paper stock as this is quite stiff and similar to the thickness of a good type of card.’

•‘We print the recipe cards on 100% recycled, FSC approved stock’•They also tell us that they will 3,500 of each type of recipe card and see how they will go from there.

Negotiating a BriefWhy is it important to discuss the brief with your client prior to production?

It is important to discuss the brief with the client prior to the production because after the contract has been signed and finalised is it incredibly difficult to get changes made to the brief. That is the reason why you should discuss/negotiate the brief before hand just in case there are any changes you would like to make.An example of a discussion that could occur in this project would be them telling us that they need the recipe cards to feature, if possible, ‘some recipes’ that are ‘suitable for vegans as well’. We could then tell them that this would be a bad idea as the product should just be targeted at one specific kind of person & not a mix of two different kinds.

Negotiating a BriefWhat are the advantages and disadvantages of employing discretion with a brief?One of the advantages of employing discretion with a brief is that the concept of the idea can be altered to suit you and the areas you are more skilled in, another thing that can be altered is the ideas involved, if you don’t agree with something or strongly believe that the idea would look better one way rather than the other then you can make small changes. A disadvantage can come along with the fact that you can alter the brief. This is if the client doesn’t agree with or like the design that you have put on their work. To prevent this from happening, it is an appropriate idea to consult the client and see what they think. If you alter the design regardless, it is a high possibility that the client will not want to pay you or tell you not continue with the work, if this happens you will have wasted a lot of time and money. Another advantage of this form of brief is that it saves the client a lot of time as it is open to ideas. One disadvantage of this is that if you are working alongside other companies, changing things without telling them could cause disagreements as it could affect a previously negotiated brief so it is very important to keep ALL parties involved informed.

Negotiating a BriefAre there any potential legal/ethical/regulatory issues with the Vegetarian Society brief’s proposed product?Copyright could be a potential issue with the proposed product as the recipe used as well as the images could belong to someone who doesn’t agree with us taking them. Another issue that could arise is that because the recipes are for vegans, it is very important to make all the checks that the ingredients are actually free of animal products, this issue also relates to another potential issue. This is the requirements for stating something as only suitable for vegetarians, when it actually isn’t and does contain various animal products. In the workplace you have to follow strict measures when it comes to The Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 & The Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992. We will be working on computers for the entire project, so following the Display Screen Equipment specific part of the health and safety is important. This features points like how long you can work on the computer before you have to legally take a break. We also have to follow the ASA (advertising standards agency) as a regulatory body. There are a few specific rules that we need to follow. An example of this would be the child's section of the rules. If we were to produce recipe cards for children we would have to follow rules such as ‘5.2.1 Children must not be made to feel inferior or unpopular for not buying the advertised product’.

Negotiating a BriefAmendments you have considered to;The Product We have thought about how expensive it would be to produce the cards with laminate on, therefore we believe it would be cost effective (at this moment in time) & environmentally effective if they did not have the laminate on the recipe cards. One of our ideas is having two different sets of recipe cards: one with the biodegradable laminate and one set without. As the biodegradable costs more to produce, they would cost more in store. 25-50p more.

The BudgetWe have not yet to discuss the budget of the recipe cards but we believe right now that we will not be spending more money than what is expected by the client to be spent. We will be factoring costs later.

The Conditions: If you look an the slide titled `Reading the Brief` (the second one) you will find a list of conditions that we will follow when producing the recipe cards, as we should respect what the client wants.

OpportunitiesWhat opportunities could this brief allow you to explore? Be specific with your responses. Thisbrief is quite different to others you have come across and offers lots of new experiences. Checkthe unit overview to help you with this.  Self Development: There are many opportunities for self-development like furthering my skills on how to work with a partner & negotiating ideas with them. I can develop my skills further from what I already have from other projects we have done e.g. when we used Photoshop to produce our recipe cards. Within my Photoshop skills I can work on rotoscoping.

Learning new skills: If we decide to take our own photographs, we will have to learn how to photograph food as it is a difficult task to do. Another new skill we will be learning is using a new software program which we both have never used before. This software is called Adobe InDesign. I would like to learn how use this software & push myself to know how to use it as I believe it will be useful to know in the future e.g. if I was to go into a design job.

Multi-skilling: We will have to multi-skill a lot during this task as there are a lot of skills involved in producing a product like recipe cards. Skills included include Photoshop skills, layout skills & photography skills. Usually on a task like this you would have more than two people working. We are both capable of having these skills which will make the work easier. We have used Photoshop in projects in the past like our t-shirt designs.

Contributing to a brief: When contributing to a brief we have had a few ideas that we need to discuss with our client like the layout & how we could possibly switch it up for our set of 8 recipe cards. We have also contributed to how the cards will be printed on.