By day the CEO of design and brand strategy firm Bassett & Partners, Tom Bassett moonlights as an occasional filmmaker. His first film, the 18-minute Connecting released in 2012, was co-produced by Microsoft Design and focused on the “Internet of Things.” His latest work is more ambitious. Briefly, a 26-minute film released for free online last month that explores how some uber-creatives work with, bend, manipulate, and subvert the document that kicks it all off—the project brief—to accomplish great end products. “We basically write creative briefs for a living, for design clients and for brand and advertising and marketing clients,” Bassett says. “So we were just curious what we could learn from a broad range of creative folks about how the brief is used by people who manage to arrive at exceptional creative results”
The lineup Bassett assembled for his project is impressive: Architects Frank Gehry and David Rockwell; John Boiler, CEO of 72andSunny; John C. Jay, Global Co-Executive Director of Wieden+Kennedy; industrial designer Yves Behar; and author and illustrator Maira Kalman. Each subject speaks about their experience with one specific project, how it was presented to them in the brief, and the ways in which they arrived at unique results (or didn’t) given the constraints of the project’s foundational document. RECORD spoke with Bassett about why he made the film, what he learned about these creative people while interviewing them, and what he hopes will come out of this project.
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