7 Steps to a Killer Brief

‘I’ll know when I see it” is a huge red flag to any good designer. Unless you have a lot of time and money to waste, you can’t afford to be vague in your design brief.

If you’re clear at the start, the project will run smoothly, and you’ll get the result you want. However, it’s not always easy to translate your thoughts into ideas and words. So how can you define a brief that works?

There are millions of briefing templates, but while they help you ask the right questions, they don’t tell you how to answer them. So I’ve put together some top tips to help…

1. Be specific, be precise
“It must be Instagram-worthy.”

“We want it to feel friendly, but still professional.”

“We want to be clean and contemporary.”

Phrases like this can mean very different things to different people. Don’t be afraid to say what you want and what you don’t want. Try to be as specific as possible about what you’re looking for.

2. Stay on topic
It’s common to simply copy and paste long paragraphs of text from business strategies into briefs. Unfortunately, the huge amount of detail in these documents isn’t all relevant and can take the focus away from what you actually want.

Remove anything unnecessary, communicate the big picture first and keep it to a few pages, max.

3. Define clear objectives
Design exists to solve business problems. So define the business problem you want to solve and the results you want to see.

If you’re having trouble defining those, think about your customers and audiences:

How do you want to make people feel?

How do you want them to describe your brand?

What do you want them to think, know and do?

Focus on the impact you want to have on people’s day and lives. This will help you evaluate the design later in the process and ensure it will achieve your goals.

4. References, references, references
There’s no rule which says you need a written brief. As the saying goes, a picture paints a thousand words. The more images you can share with your designer, the better. Why not draw something? Or attach images from the web? Or provide examples from your competitors? Use Pinterest, Google image search, Dribbble, or Behance.

You may not know exactly what visual impact you want, but you’ll have a feel for it. As Seth Godin puts its, “I’m not sure exactly, but I know what it rhymes with”.

5. Avoid the Apple effect
Everybody wants to look like Apple! Its website constantly appears in design briefs. Of course, Apple is a design icon; its website and marketing are beautiful. But will copying them achieve your business goals? Do you have Apple’s marketing budget? The answer is probably not. It’s hard for customers to get excited about a brand that looks the same as all the rest.

6. Analyse the competition
It can be very helpful to your designer if you can express not only what you want, but also what you don’t want. And an excellent way to do this is to write a list of pros and cons about a competitor’s design. What do you like about it? What do you want to do differently? How do you envision your design being better?

7. Meet in person
Meeting and talking together, ideally in person, is always time well spent. I am always willing to travel great distances to see clients because I believe in the power of face-to-face collaboration. Failing that, video is good. The point is that a written brief will never be enough. You must be able to explain, discuss and question together to define a killer brief. Plus, you’ll find that better personal relationships always lead to better design work.

When you have a powerful idea, it’s easy to think that everyone sees it in the same way as you. But we all think differently. Designers are skilled at drawing out ideas but not reading minds. You’ve got to tell them what you want. And creating a killer brief – through words, images and conversation – is the absolute best way to do just that.