Writing a better application to a brief

What are commissioners looking for when a creative submits an application?

Since we launched Creative Commission earlier this year, we have often been asked questions by our creative members around a recurring theme: what are commissioners looking for when I submit my application? Is it brevity or depth of ideas?

To help out, we interviewed a series of commissioners regularly using Creative Commission to post video, design, digital and photography briefs to find out exactly what floats their boat when they receive applications via the site. Take a look a below and be sure to follow our four key points when you next apply to a brief to increase your chances of connecting with a commissioner.

The first commissioner we spoke to, who works at a major UK record label, is looking for a signal intent from his applicants: something which demonstrates thought, creativity and an eagerness to be commissioned when applying for music video briefs.

"When reading all the briefs we tend to ignore the applications that just leave their phone number and email and tell us to get in touch," he said. The commissioner then went on to explain how the process tends to work between an artist, the label and their management team and why something shareable between all parties is so important to him.

"We much prefer the PDFs with past work and pictures of how each applicants would shoot as we have to pass everything on to management - and they want to see the references, too."

it is brilliant when a creative references their own work

Another commissioner at one of the UK's biggest labels agrees, saying that "it is brilliant when a creative references their own work too, so the artists can see what they have done before that is relevant."

Being open to artist collaboration is often a vital component to an application, with this creative flexibility appealing to all three commissioners that we spoke to.

"It's great to know that people are open to develop ideas with an artist as 9 times out of 10 they want to be involved and often don't know what they want or don't want until they see it."

This commissioner also points towards a combination of effort and visual creativity which makes the difference. She explains that a "major bonus is great images and visual references with links," and adds how important a sharp-looking PDF can be because "there is nothing less attractive than a word doc."

I would like for them to tell me where their skills are exactly

Relevance and collaboration are key themes here for our third commissioner, too.

"If someone is just applying I would like for them to tell me what they do and where their skills are exactly," they said. "That will tell me whether they have read the brief and think they are suited to it. If someone has already figured that bit out because my brief is detailed enough, then I’d rather them just submit a proper treatment and that gives them a much better chance as there is a solid idea on the table that we can work from."