Creative direction · Tool
Match a customer to a direction.
Answer 8 questions about your customer and the situation they are buying in. Get one position on each of the four axes, with the reasoning that put it there.
The questions ask about the decision your customer is making, not about their demographics. Every question is answerable by someone who knows their customer and has never opened a creative-direction brief.
The direction matcher
Question 1 of 8
If your customer picks the wrong option here, what does it cost them?
Think about the worst realistic outcome, not the average one.
What this is
A reasoned starting position, not a measurement.
The models this tool draws on describe how audiences respond to designs that already exist. Involvement research shows that perceived risk changes what a buyer needs from a brand. Work on typicality and novelty shows that departing from a category default is priced, and that experts and newcomers pay different prices for it. Norman and Ortony's levels of emotional response separate a product judged on how it works from one judged on what it says about its owner.
None of that predicts a creative direction from a customer profile. So the output here is an argument rather than a reading. Each of the 52 rules below states what it concludes and why, and the result shows you exactly which ones fired. A rule you disagree with is a rule you can name.
Four consequences run through the tool. Ties stay ties. When positions finish level the result names every one of them, each with its own reasons. The case against is shown. An answer that argued away from the result appears next to it, with what it scored. Thin results say they are thin. A position settled by one answer is drawn differently from one settled by eight, and no theme is offered until enough questions are answered to mean it. Gaps get stated. The theme gallery covers part of the framework, and where it has nothing to offer the result says so.
As it stands, one position has no theme in the gallery sitting on it: Coach on Relationship. A result landing there returns its archetype and says plainly that the gallery has no theme to offer.
The rules
Every rule the matcher uses, in full.
The matcher holds 52 rules across 8 questions. Each one contributes points to a position for a stated reason.
A position earns points from evidence for it. The absence of another position's condition is not evidence for anyone, and scores nothing. That is why question 6 answer A, where the customer has nothing to learn, awards no points at all: it rules out Coach and says nothing about the rest.
Two places where a rule is not one plain point, both stated rather than left to be found. The Coach rule on question 6 answer C carries two, because changing how someone works is the condition that position exists for. Question 5 answer A awards two tone rules, Playful and Provocative, which cancel against each other and hand the tone decision to the other questions; a category your customers are tired of says what to leave rather than where to go.
Question 1. If your customer picks the wrong option here, what does it cost them?
| Answer | Points to | Because |
|---|---|---|
| A. Serious money, or their health, safety, legal standing or job | professional (tone) | a costly mistake rewards a register that signals competence |
| editorial-restrained (aesthetic) | high stakes reward restraint over decoration | |
| authority (relationship) | a consequential decision needs someone who plainly knows | |
| considered (sensory) | a consequential decision deserves visible care | |
| B. Real money or time, but they can recover | conversational (tone) | a recoverable cost leaves room for plain speech |
| C. Very little, they can try something else tomorrow | playful (tone) | a cheap mistake leaves room to play |
| controlled-maximalist (aesthetic) | low stakes permit visual energy | |
| U. I am not sure | Nothing. An unsure answer widens the result rather than guessing. | |
Question 2. How much does your customer already know about this kind of product?
| Answer | Points to | Because |
|---|---|---|
| A. This is their first time, they do not know the vocabulary yet | companion (relationship) | a newcomer needs company before colleagueship |
| coach (relationship) | a newcomer without the vocabulary has something to learn | |
| B. They have bought before and know roughly what to compare | peer (relationship) | a returning buyer wants to be met level |
| C. They know this category better than most of your team | peer (relationship) | an expert wants to be treated as one |
| U. I am not sure | Nothing. An unsure answer widens the result rather than guessing. | |
Question 3. Is buying this mostly solving a problem, or mostly a pleasure?
| Answer | Points to | Because |
|---|---|---|
| A. Mostly solving a problem | professional (tone) | a problem being solved rewards plain speech |
| editorial-restrained (aesthetic) | a task rewards getting out of the way | |
| functional (sensory) | a task is a behavioural-level commitment | |
| B. Mostly a pleasure or a treat | playful (tone) | a treat permits a lighter register |
| expressive-maximalist (aesthetic) | pleasure is where expression earns its cost | |
| resonant (sensory) | a treat is bought at the visceral and reflective levels | |
| C. Genuinely both | conversational (tone) | both at once rewards a middle register |
| polished-standard (aesthetic) | both at once rewards a balanced surface | |
| considered (sensory) | both at once is what Considered is for | |
| U. I am not sure | Nothing. An unsure answer widens the result rather than guessing. | |
Question 4. What is your customer feeling when they arrive?
| Answer | Points to | Because |
|---|---|---|
| A. Anxious, worried about getting it wrong | professional (tone) | an anxious reader needs steadiness, not entertainment |
| companion (relationship) | anxiety is the condition Companion answers | |
| considered (sensory) | care is what eases anxiety | |
| B. Confident, they know what they want | conversational (tone) | a confident reader can be met in plain conversation |
| peer (relationship) | confidence asks to be met level | |
| C. Sceptical, they have been let down before | professional (tone) | scepticism is answered by precision |
| authority (relationship) | scepticism is answered by demonstrable standing | |
| D. Bored, everything in this category looks the same to them | provocative (tone) | boredom is the condition Provocative earns |
| controlled-maximalist (aesthetic) | a bored audience needs energy that still holds shape | |
| U. I am not sure | Nothing. An unsure answer widens the result rather than guessing. | |
Question 5. What does everything else in your category look and sound like?
| Answer | Points to | Because |
|---|---|---|
| A. Formal and serious, and customers are tired of it | playful (tone) | a tired formal category makes a lighter register the scarce thing |
| provocative (tone) | a tired formal category makes a sharp register the scarce thing | |
| controlled-maximalist (aesthetic) | departure from a formal default is priced, so it is taken in a held system | |
| B. Formal and serious, and that is what customers expect | professional (tone) | an expected formal default is the register the audience is asking for |
| editorial-restrained (aesthetic) | an expected formal default rewards restraint | |
| polished-standard (aesthetic) | an expected formal default rewards the category's working surface | |
| C. Loud and playful, and customers are tired of it | professional (tone) | a tired loud category makes quiet the scarce thing |
| editorial-restrained (aesthetic) | a tired loud category makes restraint the departure | |
| D. Loud and playful, and that is what customers expect | playful (tone) | an expected playful default is the register the audience is asking for |
| expressive-maximalist (aesthetic) | an expected loud default is where expression is the category's language | |
| controlled-maximalist (aesthetic) | an expected loud default still rewards a system | |
| U. I am not sure | Nothing. An unsure answer widens the result rather than guessing. | |
Question 6. How much does your customer have to change to get value from this?
| Answer | Points to | Because |
|---|---|---|
| A. Nothing, they buy it and it works | Nothing. This answer rules a position out without arguing for another, and an absence is not evidence for anyone. | |
| B. They need to learn a few things first | coach (relationship) | something to learn opens a teaching relationship |
| C. They have to build a new habit or change how they work | coach (relationship) +2 | changing how someone works is the defining condition for Coach |
| U. I am not sure | Nothing. An unsure answer widens the result rather than guessing. | |
Question 7. How often do they use it, and under what pressure?
| Answer | Points to | Because |
|---|---|---|
| A. Many times a day, often in a hurry | functional (sensory) | repeated use under time pressure is a behavioural-level commitment |
| B. Regularly, without much time pressure | considered (sensory) | regular unhurried use rewards care without spectacle |
| C. Occasionally, and they take their time | resonant (sensory) | occasional unhurried use is where resonance is affordable |
| U. I am not sure | Nothing. An unsure answer widens the result rather than guessing. | |
Question 8. Do other people see your customer using or owning this?
| Answer | Points to | Because |
|---|---|---|
| A. Yes, colleagues or clients see it | polished-standard (aesthetic) | professional visibility rewards the category's working surface |
| authority (relationship) | being seen by colleagues and clients rewards demonstrable standing | |
| considered (sensory) | professional visibility rewards visible care | |
| B. Yes, friends or family see it | expressive-maximalist (aesthetic) | social visibility is where expression is repaid |
| resonant (sensory) | showing something to friends is a reflective-level act | |
| C. No, it is private | editorial-restrained (aesthetic) | a private tool has no audience to impress |
| functional (sensory) | a private tool is judged on how it works | |
| U. I am not sure | Nothing. An unsure answer widens the result rather than guessing. | |
Questions about the matcher
- How does the direction matcher decide on a position?
- Every answer contributes points to named positions on named axes, for a stated reason. The position with the most points on an axis is the result. There are no hidden weights and no tie-break: positions that finish level are shown level, and an axis no answer touched is shown as open.
- Why do some answers score nothing at all?
- Because a position earns points from evidence for it, and the absence of another position's condition is not evidence for anyone. An answer saying the customer has nothing to learn rules out Coach without arguing for Peer, Companion or Authority, so it scores nothing and the result widens instead. Scoring absences as if they were arguments is how a scoring model manufactures a favourite.
- Does the result show the answers that argued against it?
- Yes. Each axis lists what argued the other way and what it scored, so a result that came down to one point does not read like a result that came down to four. A trace that showed only the winning side would be a brief rather than a derivation.
- Why are there no percentage match scores?
- Because none would be honest. The customer-psychology research behind this tool describes how audiences respond to designs that already exist; it does not predict which direction to choose. A percentage would dress a reasoned argument as a measurement. Every number on the result is a count of rules that fired, shown alongside the rules themselves.
- What happens when I am not sure about a question?
- The unsure answer contributes no points. That widens the result into a region rather than inventing a coordinate, so more axes finish level or open. It is an ordinary option on every question, not a penalty.
- Why does my result sometimes return no matching theme?
- The theme gallery covers part of the framework, not all of it. No theme is built on the Coach relationship, for instance, so a Coach result has no theme sitting on all four axes. The tool states the gap rather than presenting a distant theme as a match.
- Is anything stored when I use this?
- No. The answers live in the page URL and nowhere else. There is no backend, no account and no storage. Sharing a result means sharing the link, which carries the eight answers.