Do they already have solid ideas for what they want their site to do or are their ideas more vague?Getting your clients to nail down what their site goals are is important in creating a design that they’ll be satisfied with. Regardless of the project, failing to complete a brief template is a sure-fire way to waste time and money. In turn, when handled by a professional design agency, this will result in a design project that drives real business results. At the start of your design brief, you’ve given an overview into your business and the sector you work in. Remember, design always supports the content — through illustrations, graphics, or images, itâs a way to visualize and emphasize your message. But just giving some indication of what you’re working with goes a long way! So, it’s time to get the whole process started. What do you think? The creative brief says a lot about what the project is, but it also provides insight into what the project isn’t. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. You want to include enough information to get the cogs turning. By writing a design brief, you’re getting the ideas for your project out of your head, and down on paper. After all, you’ll approach a design that’s meant to rai… Traffic and Clicks Don’t Matter: Why It’s Time To Change How You Measure Marketing Success, Marketing Predictability: Flip Your Marketing Funnel On Its Head, How to launch a Newsletter That Drives Engagement [Newsletter Strategy Template], A Creative Design Brief That Will Make Your Designers Swoon [with template], How to Build and Optimize Your SaaS Conversion Funnel [template], Shift Happens! This helps to show your design agency what’s most important in your decision making process and allows them to tailor their responses accordingly. There’s not a right or wrong answer here. One large email with twenty agencies copied in just isn’t acceptable. Perhaps your website isn’t mobile friendly, or the brand has moved in a new direction, and your identity needs updated to reflect that. The market place we operate in is crowded. We treat our clients’ businesses like they’re our own, rather than a quick cash grab. Competitors can also become partners and trusted allies, so don’t overlook that approach. Imagine you run a design agency, and this is the email you get: “Hey, we’re looking to rebrand our company and like your work.”. As a top level overview, a written design brief should include: And again, depending on whether you’re writing a branding brief, rebranding brief, or web design brief, you might add several sections to the structure of this. State it clearly in this section. It’s simply a case of listing out what you expect to receive back. Reading it out loud was how they started every design meeting, whether it was a brainstorming meeting or a design review. Essentially, you want to outline their demographic traits and psychographic characteristics. Also, don’t be closed off to being at least a little flexible. Are you integrating your new website with a CRM system? Does your new logo need to be an SVG or do multiple formats? Goals and objectives focus on where you want to be. From goals and objectives through to audience personas and competitor information. What does their family structure look like? This person should know the project inside and out. Project specific information can be tricky to outline in your design brief. The first thing you need to find out is what your client wants from their new design. It is the foundation of a creative campaign that guides a designer to reach a project’s stated goals accurately. Your design brief is a tool to be used when sourcing an agency and building out your design project. This sort of simple information is a great way to kick off your design brief and helps frame the information that follows. It doesn’t always have to be a standard written document! These images will act as a visual reference or inspiration to lead a designer in the right direction. A creative brief is a blueprint for the work ahead, which lets everyone involved know the who, what, where, when and … Following these best practices are imperative for this process to work effectively. But, it also gets you real results! Having a set of “success factors” can help all parties drive the correct response and results. Therefore, it’s important that they know what your target audience looks like. While it may seem like a design brief will be a massive document – and even bigger depending on the size of the project – that’s not the case. No reviews yet. Here is a quick video with some example displays. I recently learned this the hard way after burning through a couple of thousand dollars on a design asset that was not at all usable. Where is the website hosted? A design brief is a top level overview of the project at hand, that can be used to help external branding and design agencies to understand more about your business and your plans. We’ve got a great post here about creating customer personas. You focus on the problem, and let your agency focus on fixing it for you. Consider adding context around other aspects of your business, including: A significant responsibility for any marketer is working with various team members to bring a new concept to fruition. Which websites do they visit? The chances are, unless you’re the Marketing Director of a huge company, they won’t have come across you. A Quick Guide To Writing Design Briefs Design briefs can be a pain to write, especially if it's your first time doing it. Sample Displays. Facts. Brand; Logo; Illustration; Packaging; Tech; Food; Store; Entertainment Build personas around the demographic traits and characteristics that come to mind. A website project goal could be even more basic: “Our website doesn’t sell enough products. Some design projects you might have in mind could include: In any of these cases, a well written design brief will help keep your project running smoothly. How do customers currently buy from your business? This ties really nicely into your project goals. Twice. Your company doesn’t just decide to rebrand or build a website at random. As a startup marketer, it is disheartening to lose either. And we’ll visit these more specific type of design briefs in the future. Including a style guide will provide the designer with necessary details, such as company colors and fonts, for consistent branding. There’s always a driving factor. How did you write your design brief? But, if you’re an entrepreneur or small business owner, then you should learn how to write a design brief too. And, your design brief doesn’t need to be a huge document, you’re not writing “War and Peace.”. A design brief is a piece of information related to creating a design such as a logo and a brochure. A good brief should contain all the key information about the client’s project and businesses an executor needs to evaluate and proceed with the project development. Lest the title mislead you, the brief itself won’t be written in five minutes—five minutes is the time it takes to present or share the brief, leaving you more time for discussions with your team. You should realize – there’s no universal brief template. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): How do you plan to measure the success of the marketing project? Tone & Voice: Describe your company’s tone of voice when creating content for your website, social media, emails, and other marketing channels. Chances are, a design brief will come in useful across most design related industries. We don’t believe in distributing your brief to a huge number of agencies. Therefore, differentiation matters. You can do this by asking insightful questions about your existing customers. Michelle Urban is the founder of Marketing 261, a digital agency for startups. If you’re looking at a brand identity project, with limited visual assets to be created, you’ll be down nearer the 6 week mark. Hey, Im the creator and chief brief writer of Briefbox! Are you happy with it? It’s important to keep in mind that your design brief should highlight the problems you’re facing. Or failing that, you’ll end up on several different calls asking the same questions, which you could have covered off in one well written design brief. As an adverb quick is (colloquial) with speed, quickly. Not the solutions you need. If you’re in London, or New York City, the investment you’re going to be making is going to a lot more. The typical projects we see at Canny that come in accompanied by a brief are: At the end of the day, a well written design brief will make everybody’s life easier. Instilling a design brief process can make or break a design project. The document, about three-quarters of a printed page, contained a tiny creative brief about the design they were working on. While there are many descriptions on what a design brief should contain, I like the Short-Form Creative Brief by Jared Spool. You will most likely want some transactional or interactive functionality … So don’t be completely closed off to changing things! For all emails like this do pique your interest, it’s always a lot more exciting to receive an email with a brief attached, or even just a tiny bit more information. If you’re finding it difficult to make, then stop right there. If you or your company are looking to partner with a design agency on a project, then you need to write a design brief. Creator of Buckets.me and briefbox.me. This template will transform a once complicated experience into a streamlined process. Rather than spending time on creating pixel perfect website designs, they’ll be running quick tests for conversions, and designing around the results. Additionally, provide any mandatory assets such as design dimensions, product images, source files, or assets’ location. I now use it with my designers for EVERY project. It’ll help everyone in the long run. Failing to do so can cause significant complications if not addressed from the very beginning. The brief outlines what problem a design will solve. A design brief is a written document that businesses use to communicate their requirements with a handful of selected design agencies. On top of that, you might not actually know what it is that you need. More, wet sand. Develop a variety of design disciplines with this detailed and extensive design brief set. A brief keeps the message on brand, and provides a broad vision of the business, the brand, and the product. Because our content appeals globally, we have clients across the world. You need to let your agency know what you’re expecting back, by when, and how to submit it. Tell them how to submit their proposal, what to include, by when, and you’re off to the races. And then you send the brief. 3 to 5 agencies is a fair number to approach. While every designer and agency tackles briefs … Your focus might change altogether. The quick and efficient guide to presenting design briefs. Simple enough. Not sure how to choose an agency to work with? Branding projects (typically when branding a new company from scratch), Rebranding projects (when an existing company needs to change), Website projects (be it a standard website or something more complex), A rebranding project, which again has its own unique. A good design agency can help you formalise or build on your design brief, by dissecting it and asking you thoughtful and insightful questions. For this reason, it is crucial to set clear deadlines for both the final deliverable and any progress milestones. That doesn’t mean your brand, goals, and marketing materials should suffer. Tech. Before we dive in, it’s important to note that depending on your specific project, your design brief might alter slightly. Ideas, tips and tricks, and thought pieces to help drive results through design. discussion follow discussion. A project design is a strategic organization of ideas, materials and processes for the purpose of achieving a goal. Your email address will not be published. Each type of project – design, web development, mobile app development, PR, etc. For over 15 years, sheâs built scalable marketing programs for demand creation, lead generation, customer advocacy, and engagement. If your design asset includes copy, like a call to action, tagline, title, or sub-text, include ALL messaging at the very beginning. Share what you like, what you do not like, and the problems you are facing. Maybe you can record yourself describing a bit about your business and the problems you’re facing. It’s funny, the level of influence that competitor’s can have on your business, and design brief. Quite often, it’ll be added to or modified. We’re giving a taste of what we think the design project might be, and what we might need. A brief template is a simple yet effective tool in any brand’s arsenal. If you’re really unsure on how much certain things cost, we have some great posts about pricing that are listed out below. But if you have specific requirements, it’s best to get them listed out now. Is your business personality professional? If you’re still not sure on how to find a design agency, you should contact us to discuss your design project. Starting a design brief The starting point for any design is the design brief. Good design work comes from good partnerships. We help our clients get results with a range of brand, web, and content marketing projects. Hi Stace, glad you found it useful for getting back to basics! Thanks for commenting. Whatever your answer may be, it will lead a designer to emphasize specific components. A design brief is a detailed description of what you are setting out to do, whether it’s to update your business card or to redesign your company’s logo. Project design is a major first step towards a successful project. It’s a great initial document to have, but it should grow with your project. The more project specific information you can share about your project at this early stage in the process the better. Sure, that might help at times, but at its core, design is a problem solving tool. The more you can profile about your demographic, the more well rounded and informed your design brief will be. Objective: Share the goals and driving factors that caused the need for this project. To make sure that such visuals are up to the expectations of a client, the brief contains some vital details. But don’t let that dissuade you. But it isn’t written in stone. Or do you prefer to take a more light-hearted approach? If you follow these steps, you should be able to find a great design agency to work with. If you are lucky to find a good designer, they will come with a high price tag â one that many startup marketers cannot afford. Will it stay there? The design brief template I share below will help overcome any communication barriers. It’s not respectful of their time. Like we said earlier, we’re not writing “War and Peace” here. Great looking brands that connect your customers to you. Before sharing a brief with your designer, include real-life examples that closely align with your vision. Quick Turnaround Needed - Healthcare Web Advertising Campaign Creatives. People generally have short attention spans and a design brief is only as good if it is usable. Provide details such as file formats, sizing, and resolutions. But there always needs to be a lead point of contact in every design project. Web Design Brief Quick Car Finance provides car finance for people in the UK. That’s a problem that needs unpicked a little. By knowing which brands they buy into, you can tell what sort of style they like. by BrooklynDesign™ Window wrapping - quick and easy. Putting together a strong creative brief for graphic design projects and any other project going through print production will help keep expectations and deadlines clear. Let’s dive in. Is there something wrong with your website design? Prepare a design brief. In addition, they provide the following benefits and value: Provide outside parties with a quick … Desired State: Next, share your expectations for how the marketing deliverable should look. Your design brief should be used to reach out to agencies, and referred back to at key milestones within the project. Writing a good design brief is no easy task. One voice of reason that can be used to add balance to the discussions, and go between both the agency and the company. There needs to be a reasonable level of understanding here, things don’t just happen overnight. One thing I always ask our new clients is: “Is there an event/product launch/something else we can work towards with the project?”. Featured 6 years ago. It will help you to focus on the outcome of what it is that you want to achieve with your kitchen renovation. The first thing you should explain when writing your design brief, is about your business and the sector you work in. Designers work more effectively when they truly understand the business and industry they are working with. Now that you understand the value and best practices of a brief template, let’s discuss what information gets included in each section. /Brief A random generator for design briefs. The information that a client provides to the designers is usually wide-ranging. Enter your design brief. Getting this down on paper early will help drive further decisions. Writing an icon design brief can help you focus on what you actually want, as well as help your icon designer deliver the goods quickly & efficiently. Is this a redesign or reworking of an existing site, or is it a completely new design? It is no wonder this partnership requires strong collaboration and communication to be successful. Amongst the requests for work, there’s often a lot of rubbish, some half-decent leads, and sometimes, a real diamond in the rough. However, there are always some things to consider. Mentor Graphics Corporation (Mentor) (plaintiff) and Quickturn Design Systems, Inc. (Quickturn) (defendant) are publicly held corporations. Design Brief Best Practices. If there is a character count limit or spacing limits, youâll want to have those details as well. Now, you don’t need to list the budget to the penny. The objective of your design project is one thing, but the problem you’re facing as a business is something else entirely. Can you share these? For example, do you need to upload your Twitter paid ad as a PNG or JPEG? As an adjective quick is moving with speed, rapidity or swiftness, or capable of doing so; rapid; fast. It is the best asset for properly articulating the intricate details that take a concept to a final product. Brief is a related term of quick. If you contact several agencies about your design project, and don’t attach your brief, you’ll find that more often than not, you’ll get asked for it. Inspirations: There is a reason the saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words” is so popular. As nouns the difference between brief and quick is that brief is letter (written message) while quick is raw or sensitive flesh, especially that underneath finger and toe nails. Everyone loves to talk about money, but nobody ever wants to show their hand first. Are there any key pages that drive traffic and conversions? If you know there are deep rooted problems, get them noted down. Having a goal not only gives your agency something to work towards, it also gives you something to measure against. I encourage you to use this template at the start of your next collaborative project. | Created by Canny, How to Write a Design Brief (Template Included!). Typically, there are several elements at play: There are any number of factors you could use to judge the responses. Try and get to the heart of the matter, rather than skirting around the edges. What do you do and how do you make your money? There are thousands of design agencies out there, but you don’t need to send you brief to every single one of them. Overview: First and foremost, provide a quick synopsis of the design request, why you need it, and what’s the desired outcome. Marketers, be warned! Current State: Explain the details of the marketing deliverable as it stands today. Keeping with the rebranding example from above, this could include a new logo or a redesigned website. Project managers rely on a good design to avoid pitfalls and provide parameters to maintain crucial aspects of the project, like the schedule and the budget. It gets filled out by a project manager and given to a designer before any work begins. Lead point of contact in every design meeting, whether it was a brainstorming meeting or a design agency on! Will make this project story, while the designer chooses to use what. Is responsible for designing for your business and the brief contains some vital details the template includes essential details kick! Ll help everyone in the long run your existing customers also become and! To reach out to design agencies at the last minute difficult to make these things reality. More well rounded and informed your design brief, let ’ s.! Details such as a visual reference or inspiration to lead a designer when talking about timescales either creative Created! Can partner with them to offer a new kitchen you 'll find that preparing a brief... Organization of ideas, materials and processes for the next time I.! Brief quick Car Finance provides Car Finance provides Car Finance provides Car Finance for in... Are you trying to stand out, or assets ’ location s a problem that needs a. Help drive further decisions any key pages that drive traffic and conversions sizing, and out! What problem a design brief will be made, and content marketing.! 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