How to write a design brief that saves you weeks

Most projects that drag on do not drag because of the design. They drag because nobody wrote down at the start what was being decided and who decides it.

A brief is not bureaucracy: it is the document that turns a conversation into a commission. And it is the cheapest tool there is for saving weeks of work.

The nine questions

• What business problem are you trying to solve, in one sentence.
• What happens if it is not solved. This reveals the real urgency and the real budget.
• Who are you talking to. Not demographics: motivations, buying moment and the alternative they use today.
• Who are you competing against on shelf or on screen.
• What cannot change. Name, inherited colour, pack format, regulation, supplier.
• Where is this going to appear. A concrete list of applications, including next year.
• What references do you like and why. The why is worth more than the reference.
• Who approves. A name, not a department.
• When does it have to be in production.

The section almost nobody writes

The decision criteria. Before seeing the first proposal, write down what you will judge it against.

If you are after shelf standout, the winning route will be the one visible from three metres, even if it is not the one you like most on screen at thirty centimetres. If you are after a premium read, the most restrained one wins, even if it looks like the least work.

Deciding the criteria before seeing the options is what stops you choosing on personal taste and then justifying it with business arguments.

References: how to give them

Send five references you like and three you do not, each with one sentence explaining what you see in it. A folder of thirty uncommented images communicates nothing, because the studio cannot tell whether you like the colour, the structure, the material or the tone.

Negative references are almost more useful than positive ones: they narrow the ground far faster.

Data worth attaching

• Manufacturer die line in vector format, if there is packaging.
• Technical sheet for the material and the print process.
• Validated legal copy, or the contact of whoever validates it.
• Sales by reference, if they exist, and which product moves most.
• Analytics or Search Console access, if the project touches the website.
• Current brand guidelines, even if out of date.

Length and format

Two pages. A twenty-page brief usually means nothing has been prioritised; if it does not fit on two pages there are probably two projects and they should be separated.

The format does not matter: a document, a long email, or an hour-long call that somebody writes up afterwards. What matters is that it is written down and both sides confirm it.

The counter-brief

A good studio does not take the brief at face value: it sends it back reformulated. That return document says how we have understood the commission, what we are assuming, what is out of scope and what we need from you.

If what comes back does not match what you had in your head, far better to find out in week one than in week six.

Warning signs

• Three people approving with different criteria.
• A print date fixed before the legal block is validated.
• References from brands with budgets twenty times yours.
• An objective written as make it modern or make it look premium, and nothing else.
• Open scope: and while we are at it, social media.

Frequently asked questions

What if I cannot answer some of the questions?

That is normal and it does not block the project. What blocks it is pretending they are answered. Unanswered questions get flagged as open and resolved in the first phase.

Should the studio help me write it?

Yes. Most of our projects start with a joint briefing session, precisely because the client knows the business and we know what to ask.

When we start a project we send you this brief already structured. You can ask us for it even if you end up working with another studio.