Top creatives on responding to briefs and the power of personal projects

What’s the difference between a personal project and a client brief? Not as much as you think. Across our two events, in partnership with the Adobe Creative Apprenticeship program, creatives broke down how both rely on the same core skills – and how to use that to push your ideas further.

Personal projects and client briefs might seem like two separate things, but they rely on the same skills. In both cases, you’re starting with an idea, figuring out what it needs to become, and shaping it into something that works – the difference is how much direction you’re given, and how much is up to you.

At our two online events, hosted by artist, creative technologist and Adobe Creative Apprenticeship mentor Cyn Lagos, we heard this play out in real time from four speakers: graphic designer Samuel Vigus, illustrator and program mentor An Chen, designer Marcus Kerr and BUCK creative director Janice Ahn.

In case you missed the events, here’s some of the insightful advice that came up across both sessions, and – most importantly – how to apply it to your own work.

Don’t be afraid to start before everything feels clear

Whether you’re working on your own idea or responding to a brief, getting started is often the hardest part.

Graphic designer Samuel described how overthinking and comparison kept him stuck when he was trying to build a portfolio. Setting himself a long-term project – creating 365 posters – helped him move past that, even though it took three years rather than one to complete! As he put it, “the longer you sit on an idea, the harder it becomes,” and “ideas feel perfect in your head, but when you make them they’re not perfect anymore.”

That hesitation doesn’t disappear when you start working with client briefs. Janice pointed out that uncertainty is part of the process, explaining that “the brief rarely gives you the answer.”

In both cases, progress comes from starting before everything feels resolved – and allowing the work to take shape through making.

Begin with what actually interests you

Once you’ve started a creative project, the next challenge is deciding what’s worth developing.

For illustrator An, that meant moving away from trying to fit industry expectations. Early on, she focused on trends and what she thought clients wanted, but it left her work feeling forced. Returning to her interest in geometric forms – and starting a project exploring flowers – gave her work direction again. As she explained, “When you are interested in a topic, you bring a perspective that is uniquely yours.”

An’s presentation slide showing how she uses geometric shapes to build her illustrations

That instinct carries into client work too. Rather than taking a brief at face value, BUCK Creative Director Janice Ahn, whose studio is an employer partner on the Adobe Creative Apprenticeship, described how her team reframes it.

Working on the campaign for Apple Music and the intro and outro visuals for Bad Bunny’s 2026 Super Bowl Halftime Show performance, the initial references pointed towards murals, tunnels and “bodega style” visuals – a culturally rich but visually expected direction.

Instead of following those literally, the team stepped back to focus on a more open-ended question: what does the music feel like? That shift led to a layered, textural visual world built around movement and energy – a direction shaped not by the references themselves, but by how the team interpreted them.

Crucially, this wasn’t just about the final outcome, but the thinking behind it. As Janice put it, “the brief isn’t the truth – it’s someone else’s understanding of a problem.” The role of the creative, then, is to question, test and refine – using tools to support that process, not define it.

In both contexts, the strongest ideas come from developing a clear point of view – not just executing what’s in front of you.

Break the brief down to find the real problem

Briefs can feel overwhelming, especially early on in your career – multiple inputs, lots of formal language, and the sense that everything matters equally to all stakeholders.

Janice’s approach is to strip things back, because “if everything is important, nothing is.” Identifying the core problem gives you something clear to respond to, rather than trying to respond to everything at once.

Junior Graphic Designer Marcus Kerr, a program graduate now working at Studio Bergini, described how this becomes easier with experience after being placed in the studio through the program.

When he received one of his first briefs – a poster for an exhibition – the lack of visual direction made it difficult to know where to start. On a later project for the same client, a single constraint helped clarify things: he was given archival imagery of bonfire structures, but was told not to show fire.

Removing that obvious route pushed him towards a more distinctive solution – including turning part of a letterform into an “eye” to reflect the theme of watching. Over time, this changed how he approaches briefs altogether – “now, when I read a brief, I look for what’s explicitly stated, what’s implied, and where there’s room to push.”

This is the same skill you build through personal work: taking something open-ended and shaping it into something focused.

Marcus’ final poster displayed on screens across Bexley, London

Show your process, not just the outcome

Across both sessions, one point came up consistently: process matters as much as outcome – because it shows how you think.

Samuel spoke about writing things down and letting ideas evolve, sometimes using tools like Adobe Firefly to quickly explore different visual directions early on. Marcus shares early directions rather than over-polishing his work, and Janice focuses on defining a clear point of view before designing.

That thinking carries into how work is shared. As An pointed out, platforms such as Behance make it easier to show not just the final result, but the decisions and experiments behind it. This is often what helps people understand your creative output and want to work with you.

Sharing your work on Behance or being part of programs such as the Adobe Creative Apprenticeship can make it easier for clients to engage with you, and it’s also how personal projects start to turn into real opportunities. Our panel explored how these platforms connect you with briefs, feedback and paid experience.

With employer partners including studios like BUCK, and mentors such as Cyn Lagos and An Chen, the program connects learning directly to real-world opportunities.

But, as the creatives pointed out, tools can support the ideation process, but they don’t replace creative judgment. The core work still comes from testing ideas, making decisions and developing a clear perspective.

As discussed during the sessions, tools like Adobe Firefly are becoming part of that early-stage exploration – helping creatives test directions quickly, from generating visual starting points on the web to building out concepts in Firefly Boards. Features like content credentials (which show how work was made and what tools were used) also bring more transparency about process, which is becoming increasingly important as these tools evolve.

As Cyn highlighted, they’re most effective when used to support experimentation – helping you explore, refine and push ideas further – rather than replacing the thinking behind them. In a fast-moving landscape, that balance is what helps emerging creatives stay competitive: using new tools to expand what’s possible, while still developing a clear point of view.

Key takeaways

This article was created in partnership with the Adobe Creative Apprenticeship. Every year, we partner with like-minded brands and agencies to support our initiative and keep Creative Lives a free resource for emerging creatives. See here to find out more about how you can work with us.