Viewbook Brief
Field research turned into the creative brief MCAD's studio handed to its makers.
- Org
- MCAD Design Works
- Role
- Research & Creative Brief
- Timeframe
- Fall 2025
- Tools
- Field research, Documentation
Summery
Deliver a creative brief, with a core insight.
Minneapolis College Of Art & Design (MCAD)‘s Design Works team publishes the school’s view book every four years. I and my colleagues were tasked with delivering the creative brief that would shape the next edition of the view book, set to publish a summer of 2027. Below is my brief proposal for them.
The presentation I delivered to MCAD.
The Challenge
The deliverable wasn’t the viewbook. It was the thinking.
Design Works was planning the next iteration of MCAD’s viewbook, the piece that convinces a prospective student to apply. They needed a brief strong enough to hand to designers, artists, and makers without flattening what makes the school specific.
The Brief
Write the brief everyone else would build from.
My capstone: deliver a brief with a core insight, ready to be handed to the creatives of the project.
The Approach
I went where the students were.
Instead of pulling other schools’ viewbooks, I spent time with MCAD students and noticed the one thing they all carried: sketchbooks. Messy, half-finished, personal. I documented them and built the brief around the in-progress state of becoming an artist, because that’s what MCAD actually sells.