Bellows

The door opens and the first hour is for listening. Briefs arrive as folders, decks, links, and sometimes a single paragraph that carries the whole season. We spread what is there and begin the bellows: the airing that happens before heat is applied.

What arrives. Typically a objective statement, audience description, channel list, timeline, budget holder name, and reference material. Often there is also last season's work, which may or may not still apply. We ask for it all, even the embarrassing drafts.

First hour. Six questions, always the same: What must be true after launch that is not true today? Who must believe it first? Which channel owns the primary story? What cannot change? What is undecided? Who signs proofs? The answers are written, not remembered.

What is written down. Before anyone leaves or disconnects, a one-page intake note goes out. It restates the problem as we read it, lists gaps, and names the next document we will produce. No work begins without that note acknowledged.

What leaves the room. Clarity on whether the engagement is a shaping, a build, or something else; a date for the architecture return; and assigned homework for the client — usually audience material or legal constraints we cannot invent.

The bellows is not a workshop exercise. It is the single hour that prevents a month of wrong assumptions. Teams that skip it often return mid-season for a restart. We prefer to air the brief once, properly, while the bench is still clear.

Remote bellows hours follow the same rules. Materials must arrive one working day ahead. Video is acceptable; silence on the call is acceptable while we read. The intake note still goes out within twenty-four hours.

Legal and compliance constraints surfaced in the bellows are copied verbatim into the architecture document. We do not paraphrase regulatory language. If sign-off authority is unclear, the note names that gap as a blocker until resolved.

Children's products, health claims, and financial promotions each carry constraints that must be named early. The bellows hour is where those categories are flagged, not at final proof.

Materials that arrive without context — a folder named "final_final" — are opened anyway. The intake note will politely list what was missing. Repeated omissions become a conversation about whether the commission shape fits the team's working habits.

After the bellows hour, you receive the intake note whether or not we proceed. That note is yours to circulate internally. It often surfaces misalignment before any commercial terms are discussed.