How to write a design brief that gets results
1 Introduction
A design brief is a description written to give a designer, to convey the aims, budget and timescale for a design job.
A well thought out design brief is the first step towards a strong design solution, it will save you time and expense. To help you and your designer (hopefully us) we have written a list of the things you should consider when writing your next brief.
2 Describe your business
Don’t assume that the designer understands your industry sector, let them know what exactly you do. Describe the size, service and brand and how you compare to your competition. Let the designer know your location, and the location of your marketplace. Describe your target audience, considering: age, gender, marital status, income, occupation and location. Are you looking to strengthen your hold on your current audience, or expand it to include a wider demographic?
3 Aims
Are looking to change people’s perception of your company or just expand on the brand. Make it clear what personality you want your business to have, do you want to appear formal or friendly? Classy or economical? It is equally important to say if there are any characteristics you are keen to avoid?, such as appearing cheap or snooty. Make it clear what you want this design work to help you achieve, for example are you aiming to:
- Increase sales.
- Improve retention of current customers.
- Re-brand your company.
- Change or expand your company’s niche market.
4 target audience
This is crucial – your designer is acting as a conduit to communicate your message to your audience. If they don’t understand your primary, secondary and tertiary audiences then they cannot understand the best way to get your message across. Is this targeted at a new market or going out to an existing audience? Demographics can also be useful to the designer. These could include:
- Age
- Sex
- Location
- Occupation
- Income
5 Specifications
Consider your specifications carefully, make it clear to the designer if there are any specific elements that will need to be included such as:
- What medium do you want the design for; web, print, signage etc?
- What size does the design need to be?
- Are there any specific colours, fonts etc that need to be included to match with your current branding?
- What text or images need to be included in the design, and who will be providing these?
6 budget & timescale
Is there a budget for the work you want produced? This will help the designer to understand the kind of outcome that they could reasonably be expected to produce. Make sure you write a schedule to give to your designer, make it as detailed as you can and let them know your ideal timescale and last but not least… the final deadline-just make sure you have left ample time to get any work printed/produced at the end.
7 DESIGN references & examples
Showing your designer examples of work that you think are successful can be a useful way to help you to define what you want, as well as conveying to your designer possible styles you would like them to pursue. If there are any styles that you wish to avoid, make them, and the reason why you dislike them, clear to the designer.
Images or colours can also be very useful in showing what you want your design to convey to the audience, don’t think that what you choose has to relate directly to your industry, or that it has to be the same format as the work you want produced, you are only trying to show the impression or tone you want the design to have.
If you’re finding it difficult to explain what you like about a design, try to consider; colour, imagery, the amount on text, the fonts and the overall impression the design creates. Include samples from your company’s existing marketing materials, let the designer know what you do or don’t like about them.
now go write that brief! 
