You can’t polish a turd. And although you might be able to make it a good looking turd, it ain’t gonna fly with Stan (http://branddna NULL.blogspot NULL.com).

Had a creative team show me some concepts this week for a project I’m working on. I asked which was their preferred idea and they pointed to the first concept.

When I asked them why, they rambled on for what seemed like an eternity. Yet when they finished talking I was none the wiser.

So I asked them to explain the idea in a sentence. They couldn’t.

This is because what they had wasn’t an idea. It was a look. A feel. A design treatment.

So I gave them another chance to explain their idea.

They couldn’t.

Now some people might like cool looking stuff. Some people might be happy with well designed things. But not me.

I want to see ideas. Most creative directors do. And if you don’t have an idea, no amount of design or polish is going to hide that fact.