For many creative media professionals and their clients, there are an array of challenges and problems that may arise during a project; clients finding professionals unresponsive, obtuse, or flaky, (Powell) or creatives finding clients hard to work with and unable to provide adequate feedback (Vrountas). The challenge is not that clients and professionals are incompatible, but that issues related to communication necessitate creatives utilizing a framework for better client onboarding and communication experiences (Galavan) allowing clients to feel heard and understood. The goal of this paper is, through an analysis and comparison of existing methods of communication and a survey of attitudes related to project communication from both creatives and clients, the development of a communication framework for creative media projects in order to alleviate areas of disharmony and remove potential communication gaps. Specifically, the following questions will be explored:

• Where are the common gaps in communication between creatives and clients?

• What phases and activities do various creative media project types have in common?

• Which methods of communication are best suited for each phase of a creative media project?

• What are the elements of a framework that will provide the most effective communication method for each part of a creative media project?

Through the creation of this framework, creatives may be able to provide clients with the best onboarding, education, and communication experience necessary for those clients to prepare, understand, and participate in a creative media project and work together towards a successful project outcome.