creative-director-skill

There is no creativity in AI.There are the methodologies of winners. Креатива в AI нет. Есть методологии победителей. 🎬 Creative Director Skill [](https://docs.anthropic.com) [](LICENSE) [](#methodologies-20) [](#case-library) [](#whats-new-in-v20) [](https://cd-skill.com) **🇷🇺 Читать на русском** 🌐 Full method breakdown, all 20 techniques and the pipeline → cd-skill.com Created in collaboration with **Paul Deadcough**. An AI creative director that generates advertising concepts using world-class methodologies, scores them against Cannes/D&AD-calibrated criteria, recursively refines until the quality threshold is reached, and **calibrates every idea against a library of 571 legendary campaigns** to detect saturation and ensure originality. Not a brainstorming toy. A structured creative process that mirrors how top agencies (Droga5, Wieden+Kennedy, Mother) actually work — insight before ideas, methodology over free association, honest evaluation over flattery, **calibration against the canon** over invention from zero. --- What's New in v2.0 - **571-case library** with full Insight / Mechanic / Why-it-worked / Steal structure on every card - **17-axis frontmatter schema** — every card tagged across pattern (P01-P18), industry, format, emotion (Tier 1/2/3), budget, idea_type (Pollard 7-level), awards, and more - **6 MOCs** (Maps of Content) for fast lookup by pattern, emotion, format, industry, budget, and chronological index - **4-point case library integration** in workflow — priming before generation, originality empirical cap, RESTART case-soaking, pattern calibration before exit - **3 maintenance scripts** (Python via `uv`) — schema validation, MOC generation, graph wikilinks - **Pollard 7-level idea taxonomy** replacing the previous 3-level system - **3-tier emotion hierarchy** with 30+ specific emotion values - **Activation toolkit** with 9 formats and the Non-advertising vs Execution test - **Pre-Mortem template** before final delivery Quality reviewed via `skill-conductor`: **41/50 production-grade** (Discovery 7/10, Clarity 9/10, Efficiency 7/10, Robustness 8/10, Completeness 10/10). --- What It Does Feed it a brief in any format — text, voice transcript, PDF, raw notes — and it runs a full creative cycle: 1. **INTAKE** — extracts the brief's DNA: product, audience, objectives, constraints + classifies the required idea level using Pollard 7-level taxonomy (business / brand / tagline / advertising / campaign / non_advertising / execution) 2. **INSIGHT** — mines consumer insights using 7 proven techniques (Mark Pollard, JTBD, Tension Spotting, HMW, Abstraction Laddering) 3. **IDEATION** — primes against the canon (scans 5-7 cases from the relevant MOC), then generates 8-12 ideas using 3 methods from different categories (structural × associative × disruptive), rotating between 20+ methodologies, with a Tension test on each 4. **EVALUATE + REFINE** — scores against 6 weighted criteria + HumanKind + Grey Scale, then recursively improves; **Originality is capped empirically** by case-library saturation (3+ canonical cases of the same mechanic → cap at 7); when stuck, RESTARTs through case-soaking (read 8-12 canonical cards, remix allowed); Pattern Calibration + Pre-Mortem before exit 5. **ARTICULATE** — outputs in a presentation-ready format (one-pager, top-3, campaign platform, or quick response) You can also enter at any phase: jump to insight mining, evaluate an existing idea, or generate concepts from a known insight. Why This Exists Most AI "creative" tools generate ideas by free association — producing volume without structure. The result: hundreds of mediocre concepts that nobody can evaluate, often unknowingly recycling work that already exists. This skill enforces the discipline that separates award-winning work from filler: - **Insight-first** — no ideation without a validated consumer tension - **Structural methods** — SIT, TRIZ, SCAMPER, Bisociation, Synectics, not "give me 10 ideas" - **Empirical originality** — every idea is checked against 571 real campaigns; if 3+ canonical cases use the same mechanic, originality is capped, not subjectively claimed - **Honest scoring** — calibrated against real Cannes winners, with anti-inflation rules - **Recursive refinement** — weak criteria get targeted improvement using different methods each pass - **Case-soaking on plateau** — when ideas plateau, the skill reads 8-12 canonical cards to re-train its sense for what a strong insight feels like; combining/remixing existing patterns is explicitly allowed (this is how Cannes-grade work is built) - **Kill Your Darlings** — the skill argues against its own favorite ideas to test their strength - **Pre-Mortem** — before delivery, simulates failure and surfaces the most likely failure modes What's Inside Case Library 571 advertising campaigns from 1950–2025, tagged across **17 axes**, with full structural analysis on every card. Card structure Each card has YAML frontmatter (17 axes — see `references/tag-schema.md`) + 4 sections: - **Insight** — the human truth the campaign exploits (one sentence) - **Mechanic** — what was actually executed - **Why it worked** — psychological / cultural / structural reason - **Steal** — pattern-level borrow strategy - **Related** — auto-generated wikilinks (pattern hub + 2 sibling cards + emotion match) Tag schema (17 axes) `id`, `title`, `brand`, `agency`, `year`, `country`, `region`, `industry`, `pattern[]` (P01–P18), `category`, `idea_type` (Pollard 7-level), `involvement`, `channel`, `duration`, `goal[]`, `budget`, `emotion[]`, `emotion_tier` (1/2/3), `insight_domain`, `media_epoch`, `awards[]`, `quality_score` (HumanKind 1–10), `scalability`, `risk`. 18 patterns (P01–P18) Format as Idea · Enemy or Conflict · Behavior Inversion · Brand as Activist · Cultural Hijack · Limitation as Power · Invisible Brand · Craft as Message · User as Co-Author · Serialization & Ritual · Absurd as Carrier · Social Experiment · Truth Telling · Product as Proof · Benefit Hyperbole · Long-form Drama · Design as Idea · Tech as Canvas Lookup strategies Saturation map (originality pressure) Pattern | Saturation | Originality cap | ---------|-----------|----------------| P11 (Absurd as Carrier), P16 (Long-form Drama), P09 (User as Co-Author) | high (>50 cases) | ≤6 unless structurally new variant | P02, P10, P12, P14, P18 | medium | ≤7 if 3+ canonical use same mechanic | P01, P15 | low | room for novelty |