By John Trainor

Keep it brief

I don’t think Ive ever felt less creative then when starting a one minute brief session. I stared at a blank sheet of paper for what felt like 10 seconds, it was the fastest minute of my life and I had nothing but a border drawn down. What made things even worst was that straight after it was time to present and I purposely untied my shoelace to avoid being picked out.

Nick Entwistle who ran the session and is the man behind the @OneminuteBriefs twitter page explained that it wasn’t about cracking the brief with a fully integrated campaign but its about getting down that first spark of an idea. This did help and once I had got a few down it all became allot easier and I even impressed myself with a few of the ideas that my hands where scamping up. 

I think one minute briefs are great as it incorporates all our thoughts, opinions and assumptions that we have on the product without hardly any time to dig too deep into it. This is the same way most people see brands and ads, they don’t think too much about the origin of the brand, the founders beliefs or if they employ local people. Because of this the ideas had some real insights even if they where just stickmen.

The class was actually one of my favourites and I have been doing one minute briefs every now and then throughout the day, It helps me step away from whatever it is I’m working on that just seen to be going nowhere and is almost like a refresh button.

If your stuck on a brief or looking to kill some time I recommend giving @OneminuteBriefs a follow and see if your as good as you think you are.