> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.snowdoughnut.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Creative best practices

> What makes creative easier to brief, review, and reuse: designing for the crop that actually runs, briefing the idea rather than the execution, and the review failures that cost the most rounds.

Applied guidance for anyone briefing or producing to a [creative brief](/creative-brief). The reasoning behind the brief's sections is in [creative brief concepts](/creative).

## Brief the problem, not the picture

A brief that describes a layout has already made the design decisions, badly, and leaves a designer executing someone else's rough idea. A brief that names the objective, the reader, the one message, and the constraints leaves room for a better answer than the briefer had.

The test: could two good designers read this brief and produce two different, both-correct answers? If only one answer is possible, the brief is a spec.

## Design for the smallest, most cropped placement

Most creative is approved at full size on a large screen and runs at a third of that, cropped square, muted, on a phone. The version that matters is the worst one.

* Check the logo is above minimum size in the smallest placement, per [logo usage](/logo-usage).
* Check text contrast at the worst spot over the image, not the average, against the pairings in [visual identity](/visual-identity).
* Check the square and vertical crops before approving the master.
* Assume sound is off. Video that needs audio to make sense makes no sense.

## One idea per asset

An asset carrying three messages carries none. If the campaign has three things to say, that's three assets, or a sequence, not one crowded frame. The message comes from a single pillar in [messaging](/messaging).

## Check what exists before commissioning

The [asset directory](/asset-directory) indexes the creative drive, video drive, and landing pages. An approved asset that already exists, or crops to fit, is faster than a brief and has already cleared review. Briefing new work when a usable asset exists is the most common avoidable cost in creative production.

## Batch feedback into rounds

Feedback sent as it occurs to people produces a moving target and burns goodwill. Collect it, resolve internal disagreements before sending, and cite the brief line each request comes from.

If a request isn't in the brief but genuinely matters, add it to the brief first. That makes the scope change visible rather than remembered differently by each side.

## Name and file it at delivery, not later

The moment an asset is approved is the only moment anyone is motivated to file it properly. Name to [file naming conventions](/file-naming-conventions), save where the [asset directory](/asset-directory) says, record rights and expiry in [brand assets](/brand-assets), and link the finished files from the brief in the [creative brief library](/creative-briefs).

Rights especially: a stock license or a customer's likeness release has an expiry that the file itself gives no sign of.

## The review failures that cost rounds

| Failure                                       | Cost                                               |
| :-------------------------------------------- | :------------------------------------------------- |
| No brief, or a brief filled in after the work | Nothing to review against, so review becomes taste |
| Reviewing the master, not the crop            | Approved creative fails at the placement that runs |
| Feedback as taste, not as brief lines         | Endless rounds, no convergence                     |
| Scope added without updating the brief        | Two versions of what was agreed                    |
| Approving before specs are checked            | Rebuild after the campaign is built                |
| Files left in a message thread                | The asset is unfindable in a month                 |

## Related resources

* [**Brief creative**](/brief-creative) The full path from brief to filed assets.
* [**Creative brief**](/creative-brief) The workbook.
* [**Creative review checklist**](/creative-review-checklist) The review pass itself.
* [**Visual identity**](/visual-identity) and [**logo usage**](/logo-usage) The rules being checked.
* [**Image and video specs**](/image-and-video-specs) Dimensions and formats.