Writing Your Brief
How To Write A Great Brief
When commissioning creative work the first step towards getting the results you want is to write a thorough, clear, comprehensive brief. Without one, you’ll likely end up with something that doesn’t fit your expectations and you’ll have to go through multiple rounds of review and revisions to get an acceptable piece of work.
That means frustration for you, frustration for the creative worker, and most likely drastically increased costs.
So it really is worth taking the time to perfect your brief. But it’s not always obvious what should be included or excluded, which is why
What Is A Brief?
A brief is not an email or DM saying ‘can you make me a logo’. It is also not a 5000 word essay about what your inspirations are and why you think a green chimpanzee would be the best icon to describe your vision for your business
A brief is a document that succinctly explains your creative requirements. It should generally include:
- What the required output is (logo, promotional video, website)
- What is the purpose of the output (to promote your business, to win new customers, to attract more sign ups)
- Who the target audience is ie. your end customer
- What you’d like the target audience to do after interacting with your required output
- What you’d like to communicate to your target audience
- What tone of voice/look/feel you’re going for
- Links to any examples of the required output you particularly like (logos you like, promotional videos you like, websites you like). Technical specifications (format, size, length) Required timeframe
And remember, the clue’s in the name. It’s a brief. You should only include helpful information and use short, clear, direct sentences. It should really be no more than 2 A4 size pages and ideally much shorter than that. If your brief is running longer, the person reading it may find it hard to follow, or hard to pick out which important details to focus on.
And remember, the clue’s in the name. It’s a brief. You should only include helpful information and use short, clear, direct sentences. It should really be no more than 2 A4 size pages and ideally much shorter than that. If your brief is running longer, the person reading it may find it hard to follow, or hard to pick out which important details to focus on.
What Are The Benefits Of A Brief?
- Better results. If you’ve provided a good brief, you’re far likely to get results that match or exceed your expectations.
- Faster results. With a great brief, you’ll almost certainly have far fewer rounds of feedback and revisions, which saves everyone time.
- Avoiding scope/mission creep. A proper brief should clearly set the parameters of expected work. Without it, you’re more likely to find that the lines of what was asked for/expected get blurred and you’ll end up in disputes with the creative person you are working with about what are fair or reasonable requests.
- Lower costs. A better brief means less time wasted and therefore you’ll likely end up spending less on the project
Example Design Brief
There are lots of ways to format a design brief, and the specifics can vary depending on the project. But we find this template works well for most design projects (logos, adverts, websites etc).
PROJECT TITLE
Quite simple, really. The title of your project.
CLIENT NAME & CONTACT
Your name and contact details (email address, phone number).
BRAND
The name of the business/organisation the design is for.
PRODUCT
The specific product the design is for, if applicable.
DELIVERABLES
What the required outputs are.
CHALLENGE
What are you trying to do? Why does your business/organisation want the design work done, and what action would you like the viewers of your design to take? What are your goals?
TARGET AUDIENCE
Who is your target audience? What are they like? You should share insights about their key behaviours and preferences to help guide the designer.
MESSAGE
What key message are you trying to communicate to your target audience via the design?
TONE OF VOICE
What is your brand tone of voice? What tone of voice would you like the design to convey? It’s a good idea to link to examples here.
GUIDELINES
If you have brand guidelines, it’s a good idea to include them here so the designer knows what they are/are not allowed to do.
Example Creative Brief
A creative brief is similar to a design brief, but can be wider in scope eg - you want creative assets for an entire marketing campaign. Or you want a rebrand for your existing company.
PROJECT TITLE
The title of your project.
CLIENT NAME & CONTACT
Your name and contact details (email address, phone number).
BRAND
The name of the business/organisation the creative is for.
PRODUCT
The specific product the creative is for, if applicable.
DELIVERABLES
What the required outputs are.
CHALLENGE
What are you trying to do? Why does your business/organisation want the creative work done, and what action would you like the target audience to take? What are your goals?
TARGET AUDIENCE
Who is your target audience? What are they like? You should share insights about their key behaviours and preferences to help guide the designer.
INSIGHT
What core insight or ‘truth’ about the target audience do you want to use to position your brand/product. For example:
Our audience has too much to do, and it keeps them from doing the things they love. We are going to help them create more free time in their lives.
STRATEGY
How are you going to use the above insight? For example:
We’re going to demonstrate with TV ads and Facebook ads that we can help them free up time to do the things they love.
MESSAGE
What key message are you trying to communicate to your target audience via the creative?
TONE OF VOICE
What is your brand tone of voice? What tone of voice would you like the creative to convey? It’s a good idea to link to examples here.
GUIDELINES
If you have brand guidelines, it’s a good idea to include them here so the creative knows what they are/are not allowed to do.
COMPETITION
Who are your main competitors? What do you like/dislike about their creatives?
FORMAT
Specifications for the deliverables.
TIMEFRAME
When do you need the project completed? Try to be reasonable.
In Summary
We hope this guide and the examples are useful. We really can’t stress enough - a great brief is vital
We’ve seen for ourselves on The AnyTask™ Platform that almost all disputes are due to an unclear or poorly thought out brief. You can save yourself a lot of time, money and trouble by just putting in some work now to get the brief right.
We promise, you won’t regret it.