A Direction is a named creative angle inside a Campaign. Each campaign carries one to three Directions. A Direction has a name (visible to the team and the client), tone notes (how this direction should read), visual notes (how it should look), and an optional Recommended flag that the Lead can set to signal preference without forcing the client’s hand.
Why named, not unnamed
Unnamed alternates (“Option 1”, “Option 2”) force the team to talk about creative work by serial number. That’s fine for a designer’s internal scratchpad. It breaks down the moment a client is in the conversation. Named Directions give the work labels that survive the meeting: “the editorial direction”, “the punchier social direction”, “the lifestyle direction”. Reviews and reactions attach to the names, not to a render order that shifts every time the team regenerates.
How Directions anchor variations
Every Variation is tagged with the Direction it was rendered under. The Lead can show the client all variations from one Direction (the depth view) or one variation from each Direction (the comparison view). At concept review, the client reacts to Directions as units, not to individual variations, so feedback is structural rather than nitpicking.
The Recommended flag
A Lead can mark one Direction as Recommended. The flag is advisory, not gating. It does two things: it signals the Lead’s preference to the client (with a visible badge on the Direction header), and it sets the default render-tier preference for that Direction (Premium routing on stills, Hero render tier on reels, when applicable). The client can still pick a different Direction. The Recommended flag is documented as the Lead’s read, not the system’s verdict.
What happens after concept review
Once the client picks a Direction at concept review, the team focuses production renders on that Direction. The unpicked Directions stay in the campaign archive (visible, not deleted) for reference. Re-picking a different Direction late in the campaign is allowed; the system tracks the switch and resets the approval state on the affected deliverables.
Related on this site
- /glossary/campaign is the container.
- /glossary/brief is the input that shapes the Directions.
- /glossary/variation is what each Direction produces.
- /use-cases/paid-social-variations shows Directions used for high-variation paid work.