Creating a Design Brief: The Essentials

If that’s the case, this article aims to help you understand the basics of a design brief and what is the desired result of creating a design brief. So next time, if you are asked to create one, you will have the necessary knowledge to guide your design agency in designing your website. 

What are Design Briefs?

A design brief is a document that you, the client, or the employer create and give to a designer. The brief outlines the essential requirements for a particular design project. Ideally, a brief will include information about the background of the project, its purpose, objectives, goals, target audience, and even preferred timeline. Essentially, the design brief can be defined as an agreement between the client and the designer. It should also be concise and clear so that everyone has a clear understanding of what is expected of them.

A well-thought-out design brief will also ensure that your project runs smoothly, with tasks being completed in a timely manner, ensuring success and budgetary efficiency. That’s why providing detailed instructions before the project actually begins allows design experts to get started, minimizing misinterpretation and confusion.

Why is a Design Brief Important?

Creating design briefs is essential in any successful design project, may that be a site redesign or branding design. These documents, outlining the project’s goals and expectations, along with potential constraints, ensure that the design team has all the essential info to get started with providing satisfactory service.

Clear directions and expectations enable designers to quickly pinpoint what is expected of them and how they should approach the project. Briefs also allow for effective communication and collaboration between stakeholders and different marketing teams, ensuring that everyone is on the same page before the project and even after beginning the work.

Lastly, these documents ensure that everybody can keep track of the project, keep the deliverables organized, and keep everything within the project budget.

Who Should Create Design Briefs?

Because these documents serve as a roadmap for everyone involved to understand the timelines, objectives, and budgets, it’s vital that the person who writes the brief understands both the design process, design trends, and the company’s branding and goals.

These can be experts who have designed your products or marketing campaigns because they understand your branding, target audience, and the design language that represents your brand. Apart from them, your stakeholders should also be consulted to ensure that every perspective has been heard and considered.

Design Brief Template: How To Write a Design Brief?

So, if you’ve already had a meeting with an agency regarding web design services, and you’ve talked about creating a brief, here are a few things you should consider first.

As the brief should have a clear description of the project, addressing the needs and preferences of the target audience, and the project’s objectives and goals, it also highlights special considerations along with a budget and an optimal timeline.

Apart from that, you should also focus on including other design brief examples (if you have any) of similar projects. A solid brief will provide everything the design team will need to get started and meet all the criteria of your brand.

Step 1: Establish Your Goals and Objectives

It’s pivotal that you state the goal of the design and what you wish to accomplish with the project. As such, the design team will know what’s the role of the project in the grand scheme of your brand’s things.

Let’s say, you might need a new website due to a rebrand project. This will probably mean that besides the new site, you will also need a new logo, color palette, and even slogans. Be clear with your design team, and if you are in fact doing a rebrand, make sure to send them over any new design assets if you have them.

Step 2: Highlight Your Budget and Establish Timeline Requirements

The second thing you will need to clarify is when you are planning to get the design back, and what is your planned budget for the project. While this is pretty basic information, it’s essential for letting the designer know whether they are a good fit for this project and what they can get you done for the resource you are allocating.

Great design brief examples will have a dollar amount highlighted for each separate deliverable. This will communicate clearly whether the client is underpaying or the designer overcharging. Needless to say, it’s essential that both parties will agree on the timeline and the budget as this may lead to significant issues and setbacks down the line.

Step 3: Add Info About Your Target Audience

While not that evident at first glance, disclosing details about your target audience is also an essential part of creating a detailed brief. If the designers know your target audience, they will probably consider design trends and other best practices that resonate the best with your specific demographic. If you are creating a new website design for a premium sports car website, your target audience will probably be people in their 40s and 50s, rather than teenagers with a fresh license.

Not knowing who you’re designing for can be a major problem for every designer, making it difficult for them to come up with something truly audience-engaging. Help them out by giving info about your target audience.

Step 4: Clarify the Scope of The Project

A good brief will also communicate what you expect to receive as a paying client. This will usually mean all the deliverables in an itemized list with a separate budget for each.

It’s also imperative to give short descriptions of each deliverable. You don’t want to waste your team’s time by creating print files if all you need are a few new digital banners.

It can also go the other way around. It can also be frustrating for you to receive a design you are happy with, only to find out that some of the deliverables are missing because the team forgot about it due to a lack of a reference brief.

No matter how you look at it, you can avoid either of these problems if you have a brief that ensures you are on the same page.

Step 5: Talk about how The Ideal Design would Look to You

Lastly, it’s always a massive help if you tell your designers what you want the final product to look like. While you probably won’t draw an idea yourself, giving reference material and a few ideas can go a long way to ensure you get what you’re paying for.

Bonus Step: Keep an Eye on Your Competition

No matter which niche you are in and what target audience you cater to, having a detailed knowledge of your rival brands can help you avoid becoming a copycat, but also enables you to figure out fresh and exciting designs that will stand out from the rest.

As you should study your competition, designers should also keep an eye on what other designers are doing to embrace successful ideas and not even try to experiment with ideas that have failed.

Design Brief Templates

When creating a brief, you don’t need to write everything from scratch. There are also great examples you can use to get started. Simple templates enable you to quickly understand the info you need to disclose.

On the other hand, you also have customizable options that enable you to work with your designers more seamlessly. Customizable templates can address unique project requirements, and all other pertinent information, all in one place.

Finishing Thoughts

Design briefs are key components to every successful design project, as they give a sense of direction to the designers. They help ensure the anticipated outcome of any project by precisely defining the parameters of the project. 

These briefs help stakeholders and designers track goals and objectives, help with resource and time management, and give relevant information about basic design ideas and essential elements that should be included in the final product.