Guide
How to write a design brief.
Designers use your brief as the basis for every decision they make, from the layout down to the color. That's why a thin one comes back as revisions, and a good one comes back as work you recognize.
Here's what goes in each section, why it matters, and the difference between a line that sounds fine and one a designer can use. Copy the structure into your own document, or let Sosai ask you the questions and write it up for you.
The short version
A usable design brief answers ten things.
- 1Goals. What has to be different once the work is done.
- 2Audience. Who sees it, and where.
- 3Brand and voice. What you stand for and how you sound.
- 4Style. What it should look like, shown rather than described.
- 5Color. What's fixed, what's open.
- 6Scope. Every file and format you expect to receive.
- 7Budget and timeline. A range and a date, with the reason behind the date.
- 8Do's and don'ts. What's off the table.
- 9References. Examples, each with a line on what you're pointing at.
- 10Your own words. The original message, pasted in unedited.
Write those and a designer can quote you and start. The rest of this page is what each one looks like when it's done well.
Section 1
Goals
What should this project achieve?
One or two sentences on what has to be different once the work is done. Say what the new thing has to do, and leave how it looks to the designer.
Without it, every decision comes back to you as a question, and usually two rounds too late.
Sounds fine
We need a new logo.
Usable
We sell to architects, and our current mark reads as a toy brand at small sizes on drawings. It has to hold up at 16 px and sit comfortably next to engineering firms.
Section 2
Audience
Who is this for, exactly?
The people who'll see the work, described the way you'd describe them to a colleague. Where they run into your brand matters more than their age.
Audience settles more arguments than any other line. Half the taste questions on a project turn out to be audience questions.
Sounds fine
Everyone. Mostly younger people.
Usable
Practice owners between 35 and 55, comparing three suppliers on a phone at the end of a long day, most of them burned by a cheap rebrand before.
Section 3
Brand and voice
What do you stand for, and how do you sound?
Your name, your category in plain words, and how the brand talks to a customer. Pick a voice and read a sample out loud.
When a brief calls a brand warm in one line and authoritative in the next, every headline becomes a negotiation.
Sounds fine
Professional but friendly. Modern.
Usable
Plain and direct, the way a good tradesperson talks. Short sentences, no superlatives, never the word solutions. Warmth comes from being useful.
Section 4
Style
What should it look like?
Show it. Pick reference images wherever you can, and add one line saying what the image is doing that you like.
Style words carry the most misunderstanding per syllable. Editorial, premium and clean mean something different to everyone in the room, and nobody notices until the first presentation.
Sounds fine
Clean, modern, premium.
Usable
Like the middle reference: lots of white space, one strong photograph, type doing the work. Skip the third one, that ornament is too much for us.
Section 5
Color
What's fixed, and what's open?
The colors you already own, as values rather than names, and how far a designer can move away from them.
Most brands already have colors in use somewhere. The brief is where they get written down or quietly reinvented, and reinventing them costs a round of revisions, sometimes a reprint.
Sounds fine
Our blue, plus something fresh.
Usable
The blue in our website header stays, everything else is open. Avoid green, our biggest competitor owns it here.
Section 6
Scope
What exactly are you getting?
Every file and format you expect to receive, with sizes, quantities and platforms where they matter.
Scope is what a quote is built on. Leave it out and you get four different assumptions, and the cheapest one assumed the least.
Sounds fine
A logo and some brand stuff.
Usable
Primary logo plus a horizontal version and an icon, SVG and PNG, with a one page usage sheet. No stationery, we print nothing.
Section 7
Budget and timeline
What's the money, and what's the date?
A range is plenty, and open to a proposal is a real answer. If the date is fixed by something, name the thing.
Leaving the budget out doesn't get you a better price, it gets you proposals aimed at the wrong bracket. And a deadline without its reason can't be negotiated when something has to give.
Sounds fine
We're flexible. As soon as possible.
Usable
Between 4,000 and 6,000, open to a proposal if it changes the scope. The trade fair is on 14 March and stand graphics go to print three weeks before.
Section 8
Do's and don'ts
What's off the table?
The constraints that aren't up for discussion, and the things you've already tried and rejected.
This is the cheapest section you'll write. Every line here is a revision round that doesn't happen.
Sounds fine
Nothing too crazy.
Usable
Has to work in one color for embroidery. Never the mascot, it was retired after a complaint. No stock photos of people in hard hats.
Section 9
References
What have you seen that works?
Links or images, each with one line on what you're pointing at. Things you dislike are just as useful.
Send a reference without a sentence and the designer has to guess whether you meant the layout, the color or the photography. Guess wrong, and they do the wrong work carefully.
Sounds fine
Here are a few sites we like.
Usable
This one for how the navigation stays out of the way. This one for the photography only, the type is far too loud for us.
Section 10
Your own words
What did you actually say?
The original message, pasted in unedited, mess and all.
Every summary loses something, and never the part you expected. The raw text is where a designer finds the sentence that explains the rest.
Sounds fine
Client wants it to feel more premium.
Usable
The whole email, including the line about their biggest customer calling the packaging cheap. That sentence is worth more than the word premium.
Three mistakes almost every brief makes
Describing the solution instead of the problem
A brief that already asks for a blue sans-serif logo has spent the part you're paying for. Say what has to be true at the end and leave the how open.
Reaching for adjectives when an example would do
Modern, clean and premium survive every review meeting because nobody disagrees with them, which is exactly why they decide nothing. One reference with a sentence beats ten adjectives.
Leaving out the money
An unnamed budget gets guessed at, usually wrong in both directions, and the correction costs a round of work somebody has to pay for.
The short way
Or let Sosai ask you the questions
You don't have to be fluent in design language to write a good brief. Paste your website, answer a few plain questions, and Sosai puts the document together in the order a designer reads it: goals, audience, scope, budget, tone, your measured colors, and your own words at the end.
Most people are done in about five minutes. Free, for as many projects as you like.
Try it with your own project
A website, a few lines, the email your client sent you, or nothing at all. Anything's a start.
See finished briefs first, if you'd rather look than start.