Good design doesn't fall from the sky! It would be so much simpler... 🤓 A successful design is a strategic response to a problematic question!
🚀 To find out more, and on the occasion of the release of the work “From brief to design", Team We Are COM went to meet an expert in design and creative briefing, Mohammed Ben Totoch, co-founder of the agency CoGen-ID specialized in strategic design, teacher and author. 🎨 Mohammed takes us behind the scenes of creative COM!
Hello Mohammed, to begin with, how would you define good design?
What a complex question! Many design theorists have attempted to answer this question.
I would say that good design is contextualized design, design that solves its own problem. A Louis-Philippe interior is neither better nor worse than a Philippe Starck interior.Both depend on a particular context, a different starting point.
I would add that the side strategic is essential. Creating good design means bringing a fresh perspective to a problem. Why stick to what you're used to doing when you have the option of doing something else?
Good design is contextualized design, design that solves the problem.
Before we get into the heart of the matter, can you tell us more about your background and experiences? What drives you on a daily basis?
It was after having worked as aradio host, that I decided to resume a university course in Decorative Arts. This allowed me to avoid military service, which was still in force at the time. 🙂 Later, following some decisive encounters, I joined the world of agencies, Novemberthen Publicis. These experiences allowed me to participate in incredible national projects, but also to work on more institutional communications. Today, I am both a professor of applied arts and design and Co-founder of the CoGen-ID agency.
This varied career path has led me to frequent both the world of marketing and the world of artistic creation, thus acquiring dual expertise. It is this position that I call a “pivot”, which pushed me to undertake the writing of the book “From brief to design”. My motivation? To bring more simplicity to the dialogues between marketers and creatives, these experts who sometimes struggle to understand each other.
My motivation? To bring more simplicity to the dialogues between marketers and creatives, these experts who sometimes struggle to understand each other.
More specifically, who is “From Brief to Design” aimed at and why?
Initially, "From Brief to Design" was aimed at design students. This book was intended to provide concrete leads to these sometimes somewhat helpless students in the face of the highly selective competitions in the sector. I wanted to enable them to approach the issues related to creative briefs in a more pragmatic way.
As I was designing this book, it occurred to me that its content could also be useful to communicators who produce creative briefs, a precision exercise that is not always well mastered. It is not uncommon to see endless briefs arriving at an agency, which even in 30 pages, do not manage to highlight a problem. However, learning to problematize, synthesize and prioritize is an incredible added value for the communicator, because a creative oriented in a relevant way will have more opportunity to delve deeper into the underlying concepts.
Finally, my book is aimed at creative people, in particular to young creative people who are still too immersed in their studies and who are unable to work effectively with project managers. There is a whole psychological and human part to take into account to argue effectively on a concept. I am convinced that active listening is the key to a constructive collaboration.
And precisely, “From brief to design”: what do you think is the most crucial step in this process and why?
The most crucial step is undoubtedly questioning. This is also why I asked Pia Lauritzen, a Danish philosopher specializing in this issue, to contribute to my book. If questioning is so fundamental, it is because it allows us to enrich our thinking, at all stages of creation.
Any good questioning starts with a semantic search, it must reveal the paradoxes of a word – its entire range of meanings – to give birth to a varied corpus. Only then should the questioning concern the corpus, a step that will allow the marketing problem to be translated into an artistic problem.
The most crucial step is undoubtedly questioning.
To describe this questioning process, I have introduced the concept of the ID-Zone, which is structured in three main stages:
- ID-Zone 1 : question yourself without leaving the theme. It is advisable to start by looking for a creative axis, in a fairly spontaneous way with items specific to the theme. It is possible to work with generative AI, to mix ideas and visuals that will serve as a basis for the design.
- ID-Zone 2 : questioning oneself to reveal new horizons. This time, the approach must be more personal and cannot rely on AI. It is up to the designer to enter the scene, to bring a philosophical and dialectical reflection on elements of the corpus more or less unrelated to the theme to extract new concepts.
- ID-Zone 3 : question only the items in the corpus that are unrelated to the theme by diving into the heart of the unknown. You have drawn something new from the corpus, now it is time to draw something surprising from it. The questioning continues in an even more personal way, it is a bit of the designer's trade secret, this step that he will not explain to his interlocutors, at the risk of losing them.
The brief is sometimes a complicated subject for communicators! What are the ingredients of a successful brief?
I have seen so many meetings end with that terrible phrase: “ So what's the brief? » A successful brief is one in which the problem is clearly stated. It is not up to the creative team to bring out the problem of a project, but to the client himself.
In other words, there is no point in producing an 80-page presentation or benchmark that exhaustively discusses strengths, weaknesses, existing threats, competition, etc. It is a waste of time if no absolute basis is determined in advance. It is only once the problem has been well established that everything becomes clear and becomes clear.
Like Leonardo da Vinci, you say that all designers are also inventors, but companies' visual identities are often very structured. How can we instill creativity while respecting a strict graphic charter?
Certainly the graphic charters are strict, they are composed of invariant and unchangeable elements. However, these do not condition all designs and leave creatives a certain amount of freedom.
Take as an example the logo. , this omnipresent representative of a brand's visual identity, which is found in an identical way on business cards, websites, shop windows, products... But not necessarily on the new formats. 🙂 Increasingly, logos are being animated on digital media or transformed into minimalist icons on Social Media, this is where creativity can be expressed.
By the way, why this reference to Leonardo da Vinci? It seems to me that designers often feel a little helpless when faced with engineers, with what we call industrial design. Since the 50s, the engineer has been king, guarantor of technique and aesthetics. Fortunately, this system is now reaching its limits! Like the great artist, both technical and visual, the designer is today restoring his nobility, in particular thanks to the growing power of typography, which is an art at the basis of all communication and which can no longer be neglected.
Like the great artist, both technical and visual, the designer is today restoring his nobility.
CSR is at the heart of all communication issues. But how do you design responsibly?
The concept of responsible design is quite complicated. A design responsible, that is to say absolutely frugal and 100% recyclable, cannot exist, or at least, does not yet exist. Design, however eco-designed it may be, necessarily mobilizes resources.
However, it is possible to develop designs with passive impact, i.e. those with energy consumption approaching zero. So, what we call responsible design today is ultimately just design that is not irresponsible.
In your opinion, what will be the major developments in creation in the years to come?
I am always amazed at how distrustful people are of generative AI. Personally, I do not believe in a standardization and dehumanization of creations... On the contrary, I am convinced that artificial intelligence will allow us to design more sensible things, that is to say more thoughtful ones. The time we save on the creation and visualization of prototypes, for example, why not put it to the service of strategic thinking?
I also think that when designers impact the algorithms, the intuitiveness of prompts creative will be boosted.
I am convinced that artificial intelligence will allow us to design more sensible things, that is to say more thoughtful things.
Do you have a final good practice to share with We Are COM readers?
Don't interrupt and always let the other person speak! Moreover, Beware of legislation, which can, if not paid enough attention, deconstruct entire campaigns.
3 things to know about Mohammed Ben Totoch
His mantra and his inspirations? « We always get there! ". Mohammed is convinced that if you are motivated, you will eventually get there. In terms of inspiration, he says he is very old school, since he mainly listens to the radio, especially Swiss radio for its rather different approach to international news.
His favorite COM campaign? Nike's ultra-creative campaign, “Nothing beats a Londoner”. To promote the practice of sport, the brand had brought together many English personalities and produced a unique clip, an original opportunity to revisit its logo. Dynamism and creativity, Mohammed is won over.
His passions and commitments? He has millions of passions! Otherwise, Mohammed regularly accompanies young people in the practice of triathlon.
His anecdote about design? It concerns a watchmaker whose name he will not reveal. 🙂 At the time, for the design of its stand to participate in the Baselworld show in Switzerland, the brand had made the mistake of thinking that it could do without a designer. The stand designed by the group's engineers, specialists in laser cutting, was very quickly dated, giving an image that was not very modern. The exact opposite of what the decision-makers had wanted. The moral of this story? Never skimp on the means when it comes to brand design.
