Design Dissected:
From Brief to Concept (and Everything In Between)
To find out how to create designs that not only look great, but also solve real problems, Miami Ad School Toronto hosted a show-and-tell with the agencies who know design best: Huge and Art & Mechanical.


“By making things people love, our work creates lasting value in a world of constant change.” – Allen Oke
The reason Huge is able to do design differently is because they actually embed the client in the creative process. This means no major decisions behind closed doors and no big reveals. Instead, the client collaborates with the creative team throughout the process with constructive feedback and bold thinking (not egos) in the driver’s seat.
“At the end of the day, we want to make things people love. We don’t want to create more garbage that people don’t need.” – Chris Allen

For Huge, the problem was clear: “how do we unify the user need through the graphic language of the identity.” This meant creating a brand that was flexible, part of the fashion world, and belonged in the motoring world—all at the same time. After a lot of research and visual identity exercises, the team landed on a simple, but robust brand identity that encapsulated the idea of casual performance in two sleek red lines.
As Chris explains, there are a few important lessons that anyone can take away from the Piloti case:
- Visit your vendors and make friends.
- Pick up the phone—time is of the essence.
- Get out of the office for firsthand experience.
- Be serious, but be sure to have fun.
- The greatest opportunity is the one you currently have.
“Being a designer, it’s never about us. It’s always about our client and it’s about the end user.” – Chris Allen


“Design is about more than just a logo. It’s about the emotional experience that a brand creates.” – Adam Zolis

The first step in the rebranding was to define the problem. But, as Adam explains, “very rarely will a brief come to you that’s actually executable.” Therefore, the role of Art & Mechanical was to interpret the brief, and to build a bridge between the client’s business problem and the consumer’s problem. In this case, the problem was four very different beers that were not united under one cohesive brand. If this sounds like a simple fix, just consider the fact that there were 14 different illustrations of the the moose logo being used—any designer’s nightmare come to life.

As David and Adam explain, the process of going from brief to final product all comes down to four strategic stages:
- Define: What is the problem we are trying to solve?
- Discover: What are the various ways we can solve this problem?
- Develop: How do we best express the solution to the problem?
- Deploy: How do we apply the solution to the problem?
If you’re ready to learn how to take a brand like Moosehead and give it a fresh facelift, consider Miami Ad School’s 2-year digital design program.
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