So, The Brief DVD has been out for about 1 year. It has sold…moderately. Read that as I barely broke even.
One thing I believe is that the product has the right idea. That is to SHOW people how to work through the design process, as opposed to TELL them how work through the design process.
So, my question to you?
What is missing from design tutorials? What do you really want to see?
More sketching?
More Digital?
More 3D?
More ???
I bought the DVD and enjoyed it. For me, what was missing was actual commentary while the designers were working. I would have liked to know what was going through their minds…maybe explain why they decided on a certain method or why they made certain design choices.
It didn’t give me much value. What was on the DVD I could’ve seen from any sketching tutorial. I wanted to learn about their secret techniques for making design decisions, sketching tips, workflow tips, advice pertaining to the type of project…
I’m going to preface by saying I have not seen the whole video, I have seen the trailer and read the website and posts about it when you first put them up here or on Core’s front page. I thought it was interesting and a cool concept, something I’d like to see at some point, but not something I had to have immediately.
I guess with so many video and step by step tutorials available online these days, many for free, it seems we are asking for an increasing level of value from something we are going pay for/ order / own…
Is there any commentary while the designers are working? If not, I would say that is a must.
I would also say, the more real world this could be and the more we really saw how that real world brief and working with a client or whomever effected decisions and so on, the more value it could offer. I understand this would add a great deal of complexity (potential legal issues and so on), but that is what I think would offer the most value. Maybe it could be more of a head to head competition type thing where the brief is pretty real world and the designers competing at each stage of development to advance. This is sounding pretty reality TV show and might necessitate much longer than one DVD, but a forum like that could offer a lot more value and learning.
I agree with you IDiot. The original concept was to simply show the process like many of the free tutorials you mention. I got focused on the idea of showing multiple designers designing the same product. The value I saw from this was that I have always gained confidence in my process from seeing how others do it. Validation, so to speak. So, getting 4 different approaches seemed like a good enough spread to achieve that.
Ironcially, Ben’s footage came back and he had placed his own commentary onto the process, which added significantly to the story. It was counter to my original idea, but we added it anyway.
A next generation version would definitely be looking at this from the perspective of weaving more of the story/commentary into the video.
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
I really enjoyed the Vol 1. I have watched it a couple of times, but have not really revisited it personally myself. I have however shown it to some non-designers to help them get an understanding of how ID works. It is very motivational and fun. I do have to agree with some of the comments above though. I would have loved to hear more about the process. Also it was very focussed on the sexy side of design. It would be great to get some insight on the non-sexy side of the business. Where do the designer get their inspiration? What kind of research do they do? You touched on this a bit with Yo and his mood boards, and showed a bit of Ben’s up front work at the end, but I want to see more. I think there was a shot at the end with some really great user maps done by Ben and I keep wanting to see those. I know that is not sexy, but is where ID is going and is a very important and interesting aspect of our job.
Hope this helps.
Just an idea. Could it be possible to throw in a real brief on a piece if paper for buyer and convince them to do it themselves first?
Something in the style of “create the product X with special emphasis on trait Y and aesthetics Z”. an attempt to get the viewer to compare both result and process when they then watch the vid afterwards.
Just thinking out aloud .