Workflows / 01
Find a DirectionWorks today, by hand
Choose a visual language for a brief, and be able to say why this one and not its neighbours.
By browsing and comparing. The guided finder and the shareable Direction Decision are not built.
What you bring
- A brief: audience, sector, register, what to avoid, constraintsRequiredWorks today, by hand
- Seed Aesthetics you already suspectOptionalWorks today, by hand
- Brief fields entered into AesthetaryOptionalPlanned
Before → Aesthetary → After
Before
- Brief or discovery call
- Relume style shuffle
- Pinterest / Cosmos browsing
Aesthetary
- Each Aesthetic’s feel and what carries the look
- What each one refuses, and its prohibited areas
- Near neighbours it is confused with, and the line that separates them
- Research depth and cultural-review standing, so an uncertain choice looks uncertain
- Shortlisting by fit to a briefPlanned
Leaves with: Direction Decision
After
- Client sign-off
- Specify a Direction
Mix enters here: When no single Aesthetic fits, Mix shows where two collide. Resolving the collision is not built.
What leaves Aesthetary
Direction Decision: Planned
Direction Decision
- Chosen Aesthetic or Recipe
- Rationale
- Rejected alternatives, and why
- Boundaries: what it must not become
What exists today
The Understand page of the chosen Aesthetic, and Compare for the three records it covers.
Worked example
Kawaii · real data
In
A candidate: Kawaii. Feel recorded as playful, warm. Research: Graded, not yet sourced.
What Aesthetary adds
It refuses: Refuses sharpness, irony about cuteness, and the assumption that the register permits loose execution.
- K-Pop — no difference from this neighbour is recorded
- Mascot-Led — no difference from this neighbour is recorded
Out, today
Kawaii’s Understand page: the choice, what it refuses, and what it is not. The Direction Decision document is Planned
Then build it: download the Kawaii brief, every rule with its kind of claim and a checklist for grading the result.
Routes
2 · products as routes, not destinations
Client alignment with RelumeNeeds verification
Out of Aesthetary · Relume
Choose the Aesthetic here, with its reasons and its rejected neighbours; set up the concept in Relume from that decision. What Relume can import has not been checked.
No file moves between them. The decision is carried by a person.
From a board you already haveWorks today, by hand
Into Aesthetary · Pinterest, Cosmos, Are.na
Open the board beside the Aesthetics catalogue and name the candidates yourself. Decode References is the planned version of this.
Failure modes
Visual examples planned
- Choosing by name or mood word, then building its nearest neighbour.
- Picking an Aesthetic whose research is thin and treating it as settled.
- A client approves a feeling, not a direction, and the argument restarts at the first build.
What Aesthetary does not do here
- Collect referencesPinterest, Cosmos, Are.na
- Generate token concepts to shuffleRelume