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What Is a Design Brief and How to Write It

Learn how to stay aligned and keep your design project on track.

In order for the designer to do the best job they can, first, it's crucial to understand exactly what the design task requires.

This is where the design brief comes in . When done correctly, it becomes a vital communication tool for your design project. Running a project without it usually means relying on phone calls, long email threads, notes, and messages, which inevitably results in chaos. Whether you are a design agency or a company commissioning the design, with a brief, you have a single guiding document for your entire design process.

Let's go into what design briefs are and how to write them.

What is a design brief?

How to write a design brief, what to include in a design brief, design brief template.

A design brief is a document that defines the core details of your upcoming design project , including its goals, scope, and strategy. It needs to define what you, as a designer, need to do, and within what constraints. In many ways, it works like a roadmap or a blueprint, informing design decisions and guiding the overall workflow of your project, from conception to completion.

Most importantly, a well-crafted brief should help you make sure that there is full agreement among the stakeholders on project deliverables, budget, and schedule.

Here's an example of a design brief created in Nuclino , a unified workspace where teams can bring all their knowledge, docs, and projects together in one place. Create an account and start writing your own design briefs:

An example of a logo design brief in Nuclino

Visual collaboration is seamlessly built into Nuclino, allowing you to add an infinite collaborative canvas to any design brief. You can use it to build creative moodboards, brainstorm ideas using sticky notes, create diagrams, and more.

Since most design projects are collaborative and involve multiple stakeholders, carefully consider where you are going to write your design brief . Creating it in a Word document would mean having to deal with emails , bouncing around your team's inboxes, and outdated attachments. Using a document sharing tool that facilitates collaboration, such as Google Docs or Nuclino , could help you ensure everyone always has the latest version of the brief and make it easy to provide their input.

Regardless of the tool you use, the most important task is deciding what content to include. After all, a design brief is only valuable if it captures the correct, relevant, and up-to-date information.

It can take many forms and follow many different templates. Every design project is different, so there’s no fixed formula for the perfect brief. It can be a very formal, long, and detailed document, or it can be a simple and short one-pager. However, there are several essential elements that make a great brief.

Project overview

The project overview section of your brief should provide a clear and concise description of your design project. It should cover the what and why behind your project. For example: "We need a logo design for use online or in print", or "we need a logo animation in the MP4 format to be used in the introduction of our product tutorial videos" or "we are looking for a web design agency to undertake a custom project for our brand and website, delivering wireframes, mockups, interactive prototypes, and production-ready web design assets ."

You can formulate this section by asking yourself or your client the following questions:

What are we building?

What design problem are we trying to solve?

What assets are expected at the completion of the project?

Goals and objectives of the new design

One of the most important steps in planning a design project and writing your design brief is aligning on what you (or your client) want to achieve with the new design.

Make a distinction between goals and objectives . Goals describe the overall purpose of the project, while objectives are concrete measures of success in reaching a goal. The more specific and unambiguous these are in the project brief, the clearer the path will be for your work. Here are some questions that may help get clarity on project goals and objectives:

What would an ideal outcome look like for this project?

Are you redesigning an existing artifact? Why?

Is this the first time you are trying to tackle this design problem?

For example, if your project involves cutting-edge technologies like IoT product engineering , include specific performance metrics or benchmarks that the final design should meet, ensuring a clear standard for success.

Target market or audience

Understanding your audience is the first step in addressing their needs in the best possible way. Take your ideal customer, and build your persona around them. Outline their demographic traits and psychographic characteristics, as well as the problems you want to solve for them through your product.

Who is your ideal customer?

What are their demographics, habits, and goals?

When and how will they be using your product?

Budget and schedule

Understanding the budget and agreeing to a timeline are critical steps in the briefing process. Clarifying these constraints and expectations upfront is necessary for keeping the project on track and avoiding conflicts and scope creep down the road. Both, the schedule and the budget should be realistic and flexible enough to account for potential changes or unexpected obstacles.

Try asking these questions to gather the information you need:

What are the budget constraints on this project? How flexible are they?

What internal deadlines does this project need to align with?

What are the key milestones within the project?

Project deliverables

Aligning on project deliverables is one of the core purposes of the design brief. Even a small misunderstanding can create major problems if not addressed as soon as possible. Here are some questions that may help you clarify which deliverables you would need:

What do you or your client expect to receive at the end of the project?

What file formats should work be supplied in?

What sizes and resolutions are needed?

Other relevant information

Depending on the project, you may need to include additional details in your brief. For example:

Who are the main competitors?

Are there any "do nots"? Any features or creative directions you want to reject upfront?

Who will do the final approval? Who will have the power to approve or reject your work at the end of the project?

There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to design briefs. The exact format needs to be defined by your own internal design workflow.

However, having a template that you can use as your starting point for each project you work on can certainly save you a lot of time and ensure you don' miss anything important. Here is a sample template you can use for inspiration when creating your own.

Design brief template in Nuclino

Once you have created your brief, don't forget to keep it up-to-date and make sure to make it easily accessible to all relevant stakeholders. It's important to remember that it's never fully finished until the project is complete – instead, it continuously evolves as part of the design process. You may need to revise it several times over the course of the project, for example, when you get new input from your clients or your team.

If you are using a tool like Nuclino , you can collaboratively edit your brief in real time and comment on specific sections. The document can be easily shared with external stakeholders using a shared link . Finished deliverables – files, images, Figma designs , and so on – can be embedded or uploaded directly into the brief, making it easy to manage your entire design project within a single document.

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How to Write a Design Brief in 8 Steps with Templates and Examples

Haillie Parker

February 27, 2024

No matter how many hours we spend staring into our dog’s eyes, none of us are mind readers. 🔮 🐶

Luckily, there are ways to combat our lack of telepathy in the workplace—especially when it comes to design concepts that we imagine so vividly in our heads, but have no idea how to recreate IRL.

What’s the solution? Writing detailed and practical design briefs, of course!

Like placing an order at a restaurant, design briefs tell the designer what you want out of a request. It’s how they understand what the project is, what the task requires, and where to start.

The key to a highly effective design brief is to be both clear and concise—which is challenging when you’re dealing with complex tasks or multiple non-negotiable project requirements . But we’re here to help with tips and examples to take your design briefs to the next level. 💜

Whether your design team is looking to standardize your briefs and requests, or you’re part of a design agency commissioning a company project, this article has you covered. Read along for a fresh take on writing efficient design briefs including the essential elements, how-to breakdowns, a customizable template, and more! 

What is a Design Brief?

Design brief vs creative brief, step 1: choose your design brief project management software, step 2: the design brief project description, step 3: the design brief objective and smart goals, step 4: the design brief’s target audience, step 5: your budget and timeline, step 6: the expected project deliverables, step 7: anything else you deem important , step 8: share it with the team, design brief examples, design brief template.

A design brief is a written project management document that lays the design thinking for a design project with the outlined goals, project scope, and approach for the request. Similar to your project roadmap , the design brief is a designer’s guiding light when it comes to the where , what , when , and why of a specific request. 

A well written design brief typically passes through many hands before it lands on the designer’s to-do list. With approvals from all project managers and stakeholders , the brief should be thorough but to the point, identifying the approved timeline, end product, and budget (if applicable).

On a deeper level, briefs are also a way for the designer to connect and align with the person making the request. In this sense, try to use your project brief as a collaborative tool for eliminating the general confusion that comes with additional back-and-forth phone calls, messages, and emails.

But while it’s important to include core details and context to your requests, your design brief should still be, well, brief . You want it to be long enough to describe the project and communicate your request without overwhelming the designer with a multi-page pamphlet that runs margin-to-margin. 🥵

How do these ideas come together in a design brief? We’ll show you! 

The main difference between a design brief and a creative brief is the target audience. A design brief is directed towards designers, while a creative brief focuses on marketing teams or other individuals involved in the creative process.

A design brief includes more technical details like timelines, budget constraints, and specific requirements for the project. On the other hand, a creative brief may focus more on brand messaging, tone of voice, and target audience for the project.

Both types of briefs serve a purpose in the design process and should work together to provide a complete understanding of the project’s goals and objectives.

How to Write a Design Brief (With Examples)

In an exciting turn of events, there’s no set-in-stone format you must stick to when writing an effective design brief. 🤩

Your team will find the type of brief that serves your design project management style best in terms of length, detail, and work style. Small requests or smaller-scale projects may not require as hefty of a brief, but there are still key elements that all briefs share. 

Relying on a template, a survey-style request, or a standardized document structure are all great ways to collect the necessary information to build a design brief. The key is to keep it consistent! Here is our step-by-step guide for writing effective design briefs with real-life examples. ✏️

Follow these eight steps from top to bottom—or skip to the next section for a free customizable template to make the design process even easier! 🤓

Design projects are collaborative by nature and your ideal design project management software will have the features to support that! Powerful design tools will alleviate some of the stress and streamline daily processes involved in your design workflow with the ability to organize, edit, share, and manage projects of any size. 

And since design briefs are commonly formatted in a document, your chosen project management tool will likely include a built-in document editor or integrations to bring all of the right information together across apps. 

Think of your design brief as a reliable source of truth—a document that you can refer back to at any time for the most accurate information and progress updates. The best example of this? ClickUp Docs . 📃

ClickUp Docs are your destination for all things text-based in your Workspace. In true ClickUp fashion, Docs offer a ton of features like AI, nested pages, Slash Commands , styling options, embedding, and advanced settings to customize the look and functionality of your Doc.

ClickUp AI is a powerhouse tool for design briefs. You can use AI to generate ideas quickly, allowing you to brainstorm and refine concepts with little effort. With a few simple clicks, ClickUp AI can generate hundreds of ideas in no time at all. From there, you can filter out irrelevant content, find the best fit for your design brief, or narrow down the selection to create a cohesive brief.

You’ll also love how far your can take your design briefs with real-time editing, @mentions in comments , and secure sharing and permissions via a simple link. Plus, Docs can be connected to your workflows so any updates that happen in your document are automatically reflected in related tasks and other areas of your workspace. 

Context is everything and this section of your design brief should give exactly that! 

Give a brief but descriptive project overview section of what your project is and what it will be used for. This doesn’t have to dig too deep, but a sentence or two that clearly states your request and what you’ll be using it for is a great starting point for the designer.

This section may also include a bit about the company or client commissioning the design. What the company does, its primary services, values, and brand identity are common details to find in this section. 

Our social media marketing agency is redesigning our website to feature a new home page, blog section, and portfolio. We are a small team of eight members who work with 50 businesses in our area, and all of our work is currently clustered together on our outdated webpage. We have matured as a brand since we created our initial website and grown as a company, and we want our new website to reflect that. 

Describe the problem this project will address and the big-picture idea that you’re hoping to achieve with it. Be direct with the purpose you want the project to serve and use this section to align the design team with the client’s overall vision and objective through SMART goals . 

P.S., SMART stands for Specific , Measurable , Attainable , Relevant , and Time-bound . 

Want to learn more about SMART goals and why they’re so important? Check out our goals resources to write and implement goals across departments! 

We want our redesigned website to reflect our brand identity better, drive more traffic to our services, and increase email newsletter sign-ups by 25% by the end of our next fiscal quarter. 

The next section of your brief covers the who of it all. Not so much related to who you are as a company requesting a design, but who the project is targeted to.

This is where the client commissioning the project will describe their ideal customer, audience, user personas , and use cases . This design is like your first impression—a way to show customers that you have a solution to a specific problem they are facing and that your project meets their needs.

It is crucial for the designer to understand their client’s target audience through this request to meaningfully connect with those customers’ needs. 

Our target market audiences are female entrepreneurs in the San Diego area in the 25-34 and 35-44 age ranges. These clients want to grow their business by investing in paid ads on social media platforms and want resources to improve and increase their online presence. 

Now we’re starting to move into the details and logistics sections of your design brief. ⏰💸

Make sure the timeline provided is realistic and feasible for what the brief is asking. If there are any budgetary or resource constraints, this is the time to lay them down. 

Designers need to know when the project is due for its first round of edits, when they can expect feedback from the client, and any key milestones , task dependencies , or deadlines tied to the request. This will help establish clear communication between the designer and the client so all of their expectations are met, and avoid potential bottlenecks while the project is in progress.

Pro tip: Also note if there is any flexibility with the expected budget and timeline.

Our ideal timeline from start to finish is six months. We are announcing our new website at an event in March but want to quietly launch the website a month prior. This extra month will give us some wiggle room if there are any setbacks. We would like to approve the mockups and wireframes, and go through two rounds of edits before we launch.

This section is all about the file details and formatting in which you want to receive the project. If necessary or applicable, specify the size, file type, naming process, and project deliverables you’re expecting. AKA, what is your preferred type of video, image, or software to work with and how should they share it with you?

We will approve initial ideas and designs from our digital whiteboard software and review all wireframes in Figma.

To make sure that all of the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed, add any other relevant information to the end. This may include key contacts to reach out to if the designer has any urgent questions, approval design process details, key dates, client mockups, and more!

This is a great time to specify anything that you do not want to see from this project and inspo images to give the designer a clear idea of what to work off of. 

Check our virtual whiteboard for recent work we’ve done with our clients, rough sketches of what we’re imagining for our new website, some research, media, and more!

Our suggestion? ClickUp Whiteboards ! 🎨

ClickUp Whiteboards are highly visual, collaborative, and productive! What’s more, they’re also the only whiteboard software on the market that can convert any object on your board into a customizable task and connect it to your workflows. 

With tools for drawing, uploading media, embedding, styling, and real-time editing, ClickUp Whiteboards are built to capture your ideas the moment they happen so you can act on them instantly. Seriously, Whiteboards are every designer’s dream. ✨ 

Plus, your Whiteboard stays updated at all times, wiping out the need for multiple tabs, constant refreshing, and confusion caused by lengthy text-based descriptions. 

RE: Step 1—design briefs are collaborative! 

You need the ability to quickly share, edit, and update your design briefs via custom permissions and convenient sharing options like a simple link. This will get the entire team quickly get on the same page (literally) and stay on target. 🎯

Design Brief Example 1: Rebranding a Local Coffee Shop

Background:.

A local coffee shop, seeks to rebrand itself to attract a broader customer base while maintaining its loyal clientele. The café wants to emphasize its commitment to sustainability, community involvement, and high-quality, locally-sourced products.

Objective and SMART Goals:

Our goal is to refresh the cafés brand identity to reflect its values of sustainability and community involvement. We aim to increase foot traffic by 30% and boost our social media engagement by 50% within six months after the rebrand launch.

Target Audience:

Our primary audience includes eco-conscious individuals aged 20-35 living in the urban area near the café. These customers value sustainability, community, and quality in their coffee and café experience.

Budget and Timeline:

We have allocated $10,000 for the rebranding project, hoping to complete it over the next four months. The timeline includes initial concept development, design iterations, and final implementation across all platforms.

Expected Deliverables:

• A new logo reflecting the café’s commitment to sustainability and community
• Updated packaging designs for our to-go products, focusing on eco-friendly materials
• Revamped menu design highlighting our locally-sourced ingredients
• Digital graphics for social media campaigns promoting the rebrand

Key Contacts and Constraints:

Please refer to our Virtual Whiteboard for inspiration, brand assets, and contact details for the project manager. We do not want the rebrand to stray too far from our original color scheme to ensure brand recognition among our current clientele.

Design Brief Example 2: Mobile App Design for Task Management

A startup focusing on productivity tools, seeks an innovative and user-friendly mobile app design. The app aims to help professionals manage their tasks and projects efficiently, with unique features enabling collaboration and prioritization.

The objective is to design a mobile app that stands out in the crowded productivity market by focusing on ease of use, collaboration, and customization. We aim to acquire 10,000 active users within the first three months post-launch.

Our target users are professionals aged 25-45 who juggle multiple tasks and projects. They are looking for a comprehensive but straightforward solution to improve their daily productivity and work collaboration.

Our budget for the app design project is $15,000, with a timeline of five months from concept to final design handoff. This includes user interface and experience design phases, with feedback cycles after each major milestone.

• Complete UI/UX designs for the mobile app, including all screens and interactive elements
• A style guide specifying typography, color schemes, and UI components
• Prototype demonstrating key functionalities and user flow
• Assets package ready for development

For more details on the app’s features and functionalities, visit our Digital Whiteboard section. We are open to innovative ideas but must ensure the app remains intuitive for new users.

Like in a bad game of telephone, inconsistent design project briefs gloss over key ideas and eventually lose the main point of the project entirely. But customizable templates are a surefire way to guarantee every detail is clearly stated.

Think of pre-built templates as a springboard for standardizing the way you write your design briefs. They’re created to simplify and streamline the design brief process so everyone involved can focus on what matters most—the project itself. 

The Design Brief Template by ClickUp is your one-stop solution for writing thorough and valuable creative briefs . This template applies a designated List to your Workspace with separate views for managing tasks, timelines, and your overall direction. 

In your design brief List view , you’ll find pre-made customizable tasks for everything from client sessions to gathering assets , and seven custom statuses for total transparency. But the coolest feature of this template is definitely the creative brief Whiteboard with colored sections, sticky notes, and diagrams to solidify your project vision, brand, resources, notes, and more. 

This template also comes with a thorough how-to ClickUp Doc to walk you through every feature to ensure you’re using it to the fullest extent. 

Pro tip : The Help Doc in the Design Brief Template shows off a ton of styling and formatting features to use as inspiration when writing your design brief Docs in ClickUp. Set banners at the top of your Doc and throughout the page for a clear outline of information, embed videos, add a table of contents, and more. Or, layer another one of ClickUp’s pre-built templates on top of your Doc to keep the process moving along.

Manage Your Upcoming Design Project With ClickUp

There you have it! Not only are you set up for success with the eight essential steps for writing design briefs, but you’ve got a flexible, free , and customizable template to lighten the load. 

The take-home idea though is not just how to write a functional brief, but how to make the most of it. And that’s where ClickUp can help you take your processes to new heights. ✅

ClickUp is the ultimate productivity platform for teams to bring all of their work together into one collaborative space, no matter your use case or work style. Its feature list is loaded with hundreds of time-saving tools to make work management easier and more convenient than ever—with 15 ways to visualize your projects, over 1,000 integrations , in-app chat, and more! 

Access everything you need to write effective design briefs including ClickUp Docs, Whiteboards, 100MB of storage, unlimited tasks, and more at absolutely no cost when you sign up for ClickUp’s Free Forever Plan . 

And when you’re ready to boost your productivity even further, unlock even more advanced features for as little as $7 .

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How to write a rock solid design brief (with examples)

Design briefs are an essential part of every successful design project’s workflow. They align everyone involved on the purpose, milestones, and end goals of the project.

A well-written design brief is like a roadmap:

• It helps you identify and avoid roadblocks early on.
• It speeds up the design and development process.

On the other hand, a design brief that contains nonessential information and gaping holes causes even the best designers to struggle to do great work. Even worse, running a project without a design brief results in chaos with countless phone calls, ping-pong email threads and lack of clarity on design direction and project milestones.

In this guide, we’re going to explain the benefits and show you how to create a design brief so that you can make your creative projects a roaring success. We'll give you valuable insights on what to include, tips for success, and even examples and templates to get you started on your next graphic design project.

What we'll cover

Table of contents, what is a design brief, the benefits of using a design brief.

• Who writes the design brief?

How to write a design brief

3 design brief examples to use for inspiration, key takeaways.

A design brief is a short document—typically one or two pages—that explains the strategy for a design project’s visual direction and aesthetic. It also outlines the goals of the project and maps out the plan for how your design team will get there. This plan can include the number of versions and design mockups expected over the course of the design project , a visual mood board and design inspiration examples, branding guidelines for the design team and expected delivery dates

A design brief is a type of creative brief , which typically encompasses all the possible elements of a creative project.

The main focus of the design brief should be on the results and outcomes of the design concepts and visual direction. It should also relate that design vision to the business objectives of the project. In other words, it allows the client to focus on what they want to achieve before any design work starts on the project.

Finally, design briefs are usually signed off by the client and design team at set milestones in the project to ensure everything remains on track.

Starting a new project with a design brief is beneficial to both clients and designers. For example, a design brief:

• Equips designers with the background, foundation and insight to create the end design.
• Sets out the client’s expectations, visual taste (what they do and don’t like), and branding requirements for designers.
• Keeps stakeholders and contributors on track to complete the project on time and within budget.
• Ensures the project is understood and agreed upon by both parties from the outset.

Who writes the design brief? 

Various opinions exist, but most designers would expect an initial design brief from the client. From there, it can become a working document that gets approved by both parties. But there are other options:

With large companies, it’s typically a Company Director, Marketing Manager, or Marketing Executive who writes the design brief. In smaller companies, it’s usually the business owner who writes it. 

Designer 

Sometimes the brief is written by the designer rather than the client. Designers usually have a design brief template to be completed by the client that ensures they have all the information they need to start work.

Collaborative team

A third option involves the client and designer collaborating on the brief. This allows both parties to clarify goals and objectives, get input from stakeholders, and sign-off quicker.

The point is that both parties have a vested interest in getting the design brief right and signed-off before any design work starts. The client has to initiate the process, even if it’s asking a designer to meet and discuss the project so they can get ideas down. Some designers will have a standard template they’ll ask clients to complete first and then flesh it out with more details in a meeting.

Whomever writes the design brief needs to include key elements so that everyone involved has a clear picture of the requirements.

You can create design briefs in different styles and formats. But a good design brief outlines the deliverables and scope of the project, including any outcomes, timing, and budget.  

Design briefs are used across a wide range of projects including those in the fields of architecture, interior design, fashion design, and industrial design, as well as graphic design, web design, ecommerce, and branding and rebranding.

Depending on the nature of the project and the client requirements, there might be slightly different sections, but as a general rule of thumb, a good design brief generally includes:

An overview of the business

Goals and objectives of the design project, the target audience and market, the competition, project design information, project deliverables, project timescales, project budget, project approval.

Let’s look at each element in more detail.

Design briefs should always include an overview of the client’s business so that all stakeholders are familiar with the brand and what it stands for.

Key elements to include in this section:

• Company details, including name, industry, and product lines.
• Brand differentiator and/or unique selling proposition.
• Brand mission, vision, values, and messaging.

Questions to address:

• What’s the size of the company, and how long has it been in business? 
• What makes this company unique within its industry?
• What is the product or service?
• What is your brand’s mission?
• What are your brand’s keywords?
• What kind of feedback do you get from customers or clients?

A design brief needs to describe:

• Goals describe the overall purpose of the project. 
• Objectives are measures of success in reaching a goal.

Both need to be specific and measurable so that you can evaluate the success or failure of the project. For example: 

• Goal – increase traffic to the website.
• Objective – increase landing page visits by 10% by the end of Q1.
• Objective – increase new monthly visits to 40% of total traffic by Q2.

To build a thorough design brief, address questions such as:

• What do you want to achieve with this project?
• What does success look like for this project?
• Is this the first time this design problem has been tackled, or is it a reworking of a design that already exists?
• If it’s a rework, what needs to change, and why?
• What existing assets can be used as inspiration for our desired outcome?

It’s essential to understand the target audience and market for the design. 

For example, a website designed for teenagers will look and work differently than one designed for corporate decision-makers. 

Determine what outcome will resonate with your target audience by considering questions such as:

• How would you describe your target audience?
• What are their demographics, habits, and goals?
• What devices do they use?
• Do particular colors resonate more with their lifestyle?
• What research have you done to identify and understand your target audience?
• Do you have supporting documents, like buyer personas or empathy maps, that I can review?

• Can your budget and schedule accommodate further market research?

Note: If the client doesn’t have this information or more is required, then you may need additional budget.

Knowing the brand’s competition helps inform the design process and clarify the strategy. For example, what works for your competitors will likely work for you, but you need to know how to stand out from the crowd.

Make a list of direct and indirect competitors. For example, when launching its Watch Edition, Apple listed competitors as:

• Samsung Galaxy Live Watch: Though a trusted tech brand, its bulky, masculine designs are not as aesthetically appealing.
• Moto 360 by Motorola: A mid-priced option with a round face that resembles a traditional watch rather than a mini-tablet.
• LG G Watch R: A mix of classic style and technology.
• Fitbit by Tory Burch: A high-functioning, affordable sports tracker disguised as jewelry.

Implement competitive intelligence into your brief by outlining answers to these questions:

• Do you want to do something similar or strikingly different from your competitors?
• What are the strong points in your competitors’ designs?
• What don’t you like about your competitors’ designs?

Clients don’t have to provide creative direction–the design team will handle that. However, it’s good to list requirements about what to include or exclude.

Include any reference materials:

• Brand style guidelines; e.g. fonts, colors, tones.
• Mockups 

Uncover what your client has in mind by asking these discovery questions:

• Is there a brand style guide available?
• Are there any fonts, colors, or styles that we should avoid?
• What previous design or marketing materials can you share?
• How would you describe the style you want?
• Do you want high-end or down-to-earth? 
• Do you want to be bold and dominant or easily approachable?
• What styles would you prefer to avoid?
• What is the size of the design?
• Where is the design going to be used; e.g. web, business cards, stationery?

Both parties need to have a clear understanding of what outcome is  expected. Make sure expectations are set on both sides.

Include any of the following details about your deliverables:

• Asset dimensions/resolutions
• File formats
• Required color palette
• Image assets to be included
• Associated copy documents

Get on the same page as your client by asking outcome-based questions such as:

• What do you expect to have at the end of the project?
• What file formats should the design work be supplied in?
• What asset size and resolution are needed?
• Is there a specific prototyping or handoff platform that should be used?
• Do you require me to handoff work directly to a development team?

Clients need to state when they want to start and complete the project. If timescales don’t fit with the designer’s other commitments, it could be a non-starter. 

Aside from starting and ending the project, there will be other milestones along the way like concepts, final designs, development work, and reviews. Clients also need to account for providing their timely feedback throughout the project – otherwise, they could end up delaying the process and missing deadlines.

In short, both parties need to be realistic and flexible to account for potential changes or unexpected obstacles to project timescales. 

Determine a timeline by asking: 

• When will the project start?
• When will the project finish?
• Are there any inter-dependencies for this project?

Both the client and the designer need to be aware of the budget and constraints before the work commences.

The project budget has to align with project deliverables to avoid the possibility of scope creep.

Don’t avoid the subject. Discuss it as soon as possible so both parties know what to expect.

• What are the budget constraints on this project?
• Have research, development, and testing costs been considered?
• In what circumstances would there be budget flexibility?

In this section, list all the key stakeholders, contributors, and points of contact within the project with their assigned roles. You'll need a primary point of contact for the project, plus a person responsible for the final sign-off on all project deliverables.

Make sure all the details are listed, including their name, email address, and phone number. Remember to include any third-parties involved in the project, such as copywriters or web developers.

• Who’ll be the primary contact person for the project, and who will have the final sign-off on all deliverables from the client's side?
• Is anyone else to be included in the approvals?
• How will the review and approval process work once design begins and progresses?

Here are three different styles of design briefs to give you an idea of what’s possible.

1. Hush Puppies

The design brief example from Hush Puppies ticks all the boxes. It’s presented in a formal layout with clear section headings highlighting each component of the design brief. 

2. Quaker Oats

The next design brief from Quaker Oats has a different layout, but when you look closely, you’ll see it has all the essential ingredients. The background facts also provide handy information on the problem and what Quaker Oats want to achieve with their campaign.

3. Apple Watch

The final example for the Apple Watch Edition uses some existing photos to add substance to the design brief. But aside from that, you can see all the required elements, plus the “mandatories” of what and what not to mention.

Good design briefs are essential for any successful design project as they benefit both the client and the design team by:

• Equipping designers with the background, foundation, and insight to create the final product.
• Setting out the client’s expectations, taste (what they do and don’t like), and branding requirements for designers.
• Ensuring the project is understood and agreed upon by both parties from the outset.
• Keeping all stakeholders and contributors on track to complete the project on time and within budget.

The information you include in a design brief and how you manage the approval of the design plans can make or break your design project. Before you begin creative production, be sure to:

• Prioritize creating a design brief before launching any project to align on expectation and outcomes.
• Document all aspects of the project from inspiration to budget to deadline in order to eliminate any surprises or differences in opinion.
• implement a workflow tool that streamlines clunky processes in various platforms so that teams can stay focused on the outcome without unnecessary admin tasks.

Ziflow is the perfect tool for successful sign-off of design briefs by the client and design team as all stakeholders get real-time updates and notifications throughout the review and approval. Learn more about using Ziflow's creative collaboration platform to review and approve your design projects from brief to final version .

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Use our free design brief templates to elevate your next creative project. Capture all the key information needed to guide your creative team to deliver exceptional creative work.

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How to create a design brief in 7 steps

A design brief is a document that outlines the core details and expectations of a design project for a brand. A good design brief sets the tone for a successful design project by outlining the goals, quality, and deliverables. In this article, you’ll learn what a design brief is, how to create a successful one, and what you should include in your next design brief.

In this guide, we cover what a design brief is, the benefits of creating one, how to write a design brief, and the elements you should always include. Plus, check out an example design brief template to get you started.

What is a design brief?

A design brief is a document that outlines the core details and expectations of a design project for a brand. This document should be an easy-to-understand plan of how the project will be executed. An effective design brief aligns the company and designer’s goals so everyone is satisfied with the final deliverable. 

Any company that utilizes design resources can benefit from having designers create a brief prior to their project—whether those designers are in-house or freelance . For the purpose of this article, we'll use client and company interchangeably to represent the party commissioning the design project.

A design brief starts by explaining why a new design is necessary. This includes how the design will benefit the target audience , how it will move the brand voice forward, and how it will fit in with the larger competitor landscape. The designer uses this information to write out the goals and objectives for the upcoming project. 

Finally, the brief includes project details, deliverables, budget, timelines, and scope so that everyone has the same expectations. Design briefs are great for keeping both client and design teams aligned.

Design brief vs. creative brief

If you’ve never created one before, a design brief might seem a lot like a creative brief. Overall, a design brief handles more of the preproduction and business side of the project, while the creative brief tackles the innovative execution. 

A well-done design brief give both parties a solid layout for how they’re going to accomplish their goals. It’s a great guide to look back on if one party ever feels like the progress is getting off track or a disagreement arises. 

Once you’ve done the research associated with a design brief, your team will use a creative brief to dive deeper into the company and target audience to tailor your designs to their needs. This second brief is a more in-depth look into how your design will speak to their customers, what elements you want to include, and the reasoning behind your artistic decisions.

Why do designers need a design brief?

There are many advantages to having a design brief when starting a new project. It gives you time to truly understand the nuances of a company and its audience. A design brief also reassures the client that their opinion is valued and that all parties have the same end goal. 

By using a design brief you can:

Create a more trusting designer-client relationship.

Gain insight into the brand and target audience.

Invite the client to be more involved in the project.

Align on a reasonable timeline and budget before the project begins.

Set a standard for the quality and types of deliverables needed.

What to include in your design brief

Design briefs come in many different forms, but there are certain aspects that should be included each time. Once you have included the basics, the design brief can be customized depending on the type of project or client. 

Start your design brief with context about why you’re making your creative choices based. The context should also clarify how your creative choices will contribute to the client’s goals. Finally, your design brief should include all of the necessary information to outline a project from start to finish.

Start your design brief by listing out information about the company the project is for. This starting point helps you gain stakeholders’ trust by demonstrating that you understand their market, industry, and brand guidelines. 

The project or brand overview typically includes details such as the size of their company, contact information, past projects, or their current design needs. This can be especially helpful when multiple people are working on the same project. Once the overview is finalized, everyone will have a quick summary on hand that they can refer back to as needed.

Questions to ask:

What are the client’s unique aspects?

What does the company do?

What are their brand guidelines and expectations?

What themes or common motifs are important to their brand?

What are the client’s primary needs? How can we meet those needs?

Project scope and overview

Once you’ve written out a brand overview, it’s time to give a detailed description of the design project being executed. This description is a summary of what you’ll be working on, why this work benefits the client, and everyone’s roles and responsibilities .

This is also an opportunity for you to clarify the project scope , which outlines exactly what is needed to accomplish a project. The scope of the project should be agreed upon by both parties to avoid confusion or tension throughout the design process.

What designs will we create?

What issues are we trying to solve with these new designs?

What are the client's expectations of this project?

What is within scope? What is out of scope?

How will we manage scope creep ?

Design goals and objectives

After an overview of the project and company is complete, it’s important to explain the goals and objectives for a project. This section should focus on the design problem to solve and the steps your team will take to fix the issue.

In this section, you should also outline the purpose of the project and lay out concrete steps for how you will reach the goal in mind. This section should give a clear path for how the project will be executed—make sure to keep it as specific as possible.

What will make this a successful project?

What steps do we need to take to accomplish our objectives?

What are our project goals for this design?

What metrics will we use to measure success?

Target audience

Understanding a client’s customers is critical so you can create designs that speak to the people they’re trying to target. In order to do this, create a design idea board to clarify and contextualize your client’s  audience. This board is a chance for you to think about the client’s customers and build a persona with them in mind. 

Your client might already have a persona that your designers can use. If they don’t, you can also create one based on your client’s target audience,  demographics, psychological characteristics, and hobbies. All of this helps to form an image of who your design work is catering to. 

What are your customer’s favorite hobbies?

What are your persona’s demographics and psychological traits?

How will your product or service help your target audience?

What does your target audience want?

What important characteristics impact your target audience’s behavior (whether that’s age, sex, region, etc)?

Budget and timeline

One of the most important steps of any good design brief is to write out an agreed upon project budget and timeline. Many clients that aren’t designers might not realize how long each stage will take, so it’s smart to have a rough estimate for them to refer back to.

When you and your client make a budget for a project, it’s important to be realistic about the time it will take to research, plan, create, and make edits as needed. Be sure to leave enough room in their schedule and budget for potential difficulties or unexpected changes.

How long will this project take from start to finish?

What is the budget for this project?

How long should it take to receive feedback? 

How frequently will you and your client update your project timeline tool ?

Competitor analysis

Every organization has other competing brands and it’s important to understand the competition. Once you have a strong understanding of the brand’s competition you can create new and innovative designs that stand out from the crowd.

Designers should learn from their competition’s past design successes and mistakes to help dictate the direction of their next great design plan. Having a strong grasp of your client’s competitors will help make better design decisions in the future.

 Who are the company’s competitors?

 What designs have been successful for the competition in the past?

 What makes our brand stand out against competitors?

Has my client created a competitive analysis I can review?

Project deliverables

All of the information you’ve filled out and the research you’ve done to create a plan for their design is essential for explaining the project deliverables. This, essentially, is what the client will receive and what the end product will be. 

Project deliverables will vary depending on the size, scope , and budget of the project. Setting clear standards and writing out the deliverables will help make sure there aren’t any misunderstandings at the end of the project.

 What will the end result look like?

 What are the deliverables for this project?

 What are the major project milestones throughout the process?

Design brief template

Check out our design brief template below to make creating an effective design brief more simple. Below, you’ll find a sample of what a design brief would look like for an ebook campaign launch, but can be customized to fit any project. Use this as a starting point for your own brief to make sure all the details are covered up front. 

Design brief example   

Use this template as a starting point to further customize a brief that works for your team. 

What is your project and what is the scope?

Why is this project important? What are you trying to achieve?  

Who are you targeting? The more specific, the better.

What is the overall budget? How should it be spent?

Timeline and deliverables

Outline the date and description for each deliverable. 

Benefits of creating a design brief with Asana

There are major benefits to creating a design brief with an online shared system. First, if you create a design brief in a tool like Asana , all of your stakeholders can access the information. This allows for everyone to be on the same page on the project, goals, and timeline. 

If your client has questions, the answer is at their fingertips in the tool you’re using. Also, if designers need to intake requests, they can use Forms to automatically get all of the information they need so they can get started right as the request comes in.

Clear design briefs drive successful projects

A well-written design brief will help provide shared clarity surrounding your project goals and deliverables. With Asana’s creative production tools, you’ll be able to streamline your design projects and your team will be able to deliver game-changing results time and time again.

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What Is a Design Brief: Templates, Examples & More

Anyone who’s ever submitted a proposal or tried to snag a design project has probably been asked to submit or create a design brief for the project. It’s a fairly standard practice but can often be intimidating, particularly if you aren’t used to it.

A good design brief is a tool that can help you and design clients get on the same page for projects and help them move along more smoothly.

You’ll outline deliverables and timelines so that clients are comfortable with your process.

Let’s break it down with some best practices, examples, and templates.

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What Is A Design Brief?

A design or creative brief is a document that outlines how a design project should go. It will likely include many of the things that the proposal for the job entailed but will go into further detail for a client that has already decided to hire you.

A design brief can be a powerful project management tool that keeps you and clients on target with everything from deadlines to project milestones to deliverables.

A design brief should do the following things:

• Provide background and scope of a project.
• Set expectations and goals for the completed project.
• Outline constraints, such as budget, creative materials, or timeline.
• List all deliverables and “wish list” elements for the finished design.
• Provides design specs.

Things to Include In a Design Brief

While the specifics of every design brief vary, there are a few sections and things that almost all include in some way.

Make the most of each section by giving it a header in the document. Some sections may have a more narrative format, while others may include a list of bulleted points.

Elements of a design brief include:

• Overview of the company: Brand identity and style, values, and mission
• Project overview: Scope of project and goals (new vs. redesign, client deliverables)
• Goals and audience: Use SMART goals that outline actionable goals that you can deliver on; goals will directly relate to the target audience
• Design and materials needs: Client feature requests as well as things you need from the client
• Budget and timeline: If there are elements that could cause the budget to change, note them; outline key milestones and dates for deliverables
• Overall design style or feel: Overview of the aesthetic for the project
• Notes: Include a short section for any important notes, such as things the client dislikes or aspirational designs

Design Brief Best Practices

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. People generally have short attention spans and a design brief is only as good if it is usable.

The balance lies in creating a document that includes everything you need for a project in a manner and format that clients (and other team members) can scan quickly for information.

• Keep it short. Try to keep the brief to 1 to 3 pages.
• Develop a template that you can use repeatedly for similar projects.
• Tailor the design to mimic the concept of the project.
• Deliver in a digital format, but design for office printers (no bleeds or heavy color that can render poorly with printing).
• Use headings and subheadings for sections to make it easy to find information.
• Use straightforward language and avoid design jargon or getting too deep into what you are going to do. The client only needs to know what the deliverables are, not the path to completion.

How to Design a Design Brief

As a designer submitting a design brief, the look and feel of the document matters.

While it does not need a high-design feel, it should represent you as a designer. In terms of design, it should fall somewhere between a document on letterhead to a more polished piece of brand collateral.

You have two choices when designing the brief:

• Create a basic style that you use for all design briefs that’s rooted in your brand
• Develop a semi-custom design that mimics the style of the client

Every design brief should use the following design elements:

• Your logo (or a simple logotype if you are an independent contractor or feelancer)
• Contact details and information
• Distinct content hierarchy with headings, subheadings, and body type (paragraph and list styles)
• Page numbering footer information to ensure that all pages are identified
• Simple typography that’s easy to read

Design Brief Templates

You can create your own design brief template or download one from a design marketplace as a starting point (that you can further customize as needed).

Here are a few that we like:

• Brief and Scribbles: Everything you need for a design brief, plus pages for design concepts and sketches (pictured above)
• Design Brief: Simple InDesign template that you can customize and fill in
• Project Brief: Simply formatted template that you can use in Microsoft Word or Adobe InDesign
• Project and Design Scribbles: This is an extensive template that you can fill in with question prompts to help guide projects
• One Page Logo Design Brief: This has a more visual format for simple logo projects (pictured below)

The challenge with creating a design brief is that it typically falls outside of a designer’s normal comfort level and skill set. At larger agencies, account executives will often work with you to write this document, but as a solo entrepreneur or freelancer, you’ll do it on your own.

The goal is to create a base design brief template that will stand as the basis for all future projects. Depending on your work, you may have a couple of templates for different types of jobs – website design, branding, logo design, letterhead, etc.

A design brief is supposed to make your life easier; use this guide to add tools to your kit that do exactly that.

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How to Write a Design Brief in 10 Steps

Design Brief 101

DesignCrowd's design order form captures the type of information listed here.

Here are 10 key questions and sections of information your need to include in your design brief:

Overview of Organisation

• What does your organisation do? A business that deals in finance will have different design features than one that works in law. You should know what your business does already, so stick it in the brief.
• Who is your target market? This should co-exist with what your organisation does. Are you targeting males in their teenage/young adult years? Females in an older age bracket?
• Who are the main competitors to your organisation? This gives the designers something to look at as well as offer an idea around what they have to compete with graphics wise. The more info on this, the better. URL to their website, examples of their marketing material etc.
• How does your organisation differ to your competitors? There has to be a point of difference, if not you are just copying their idea. Tell the designer, and try to make that a feature of the design.
• The history of your organisation. What have you done before in the realm of graphic design? Knowing what you liked or disliked before will give the designer a better view of what you want as a client.

Knowing exactly what you want from you project will help the designer immensely. If they know what you want done, they can figure out exactly what you need. These are the questions that you need to ask yourself:

• Why are you seeking design services? Is it a rebrand, or a new company? If it's a rebrand, why are you seeking to rebrand?
• What message do you wish to communicate about your business? Why?
• What are your goals? To increase sales, increase awareness etc.

Requirements

Do you require the designer to use any specific text, colours, or images? If so, supply these details to the designer. When providing colours for a print job, provide CMYK percentages, or better yet, Pantone colour swatches. If it's a web design, send them RGB hex colour codes. This will make it easier for the designer and will help the project run smoother.

Budget and Deadline

• Tell the designer how much money you are willing to spend. At DesignCrowd.com we try and make working out a budget easy by creating packages around particular price points. If you're choosing to hire a freelancer directly then be direct about giving this detail to the designer as it will allow them to understand how much time they should spend on the project.
• Set a realistic deadline for the project that both yourself and the designer agree upon. Remember, there are many stages to the design process. Each stage will take time and resources away from the designer and yourself as you focus on each phase of the design process (Brief, Research, Concepts, Feedback etc.).

If you address everything within this post, you should have a 'designer-friendly' brief ready and raring to go. Take your time in filling the sections out - the more information you put into the document, the faster the end result will come. For further reading, check out imjustcreative's blog posts .

This article is designed to help you think through your requirements so designers can interpret the brief and quickly create relevant designs for your project.

DesignCrowd's 600,000+ designers are a talented bunch. If you have a similar project in mind or need a graphic design to promote your company or organisation you can invite designers from DesignCrowd's designer directory directly to your project for free. If you're looking for freelance design jobs , find out more about the benefits when you join DesignCrowd today.

This article was originally published in on August 8, 2012

• business insights
• crowdsourcing
• design brief

Written by DesignCrowd on Tuesday, March 8, 2016

DesignCrowd is an online marketplace providing logo, website, print and graphic design services by providing access to freelance graphic designers and design studios around the world.

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Anonymous | 26 Aug 2012

It's amazing how many people I come across that assumes it's the job of the Designer to put their design brief together. I tend to think they're not really serious when giving an overview of their organization becomes that task that's impossible to complete for your would-be Designer. Thanks for explaining what a design brief is.

Anonymous | 27 Aug 2012

Points above are well taken, and appreciated. This is a great guideline for Owners. I'd make two other subtle requests of the Project Owners, especially those return Clients to the site: First, please, please and one more please-do not mistake the crowdsourcing for an opportunity to effect exquisite, well-composed and brilliant Work in exchange for relative "pennies on the dollar." When I see an Project Owner requesting/demanding an otherwise "brilliant and effective Brand Logo Campaign, Website coding, etc in the likes of the Nike Swoosh, FedEx, etc" with an Award of less than 400USD my stomach literally turns. The communication alone should show each revision and submission is a Designers time vested without guarantee. There is significant talent on this site; if you're new to the site, Stop & Look! It only takes ten minutes to navigate for proof that you're in a great place. But when an Owner expects the world (or at least a 1000+USD protect-able Logo-element to spearhead her Brand Identity/Marketing Campaign) for 200USD, you either shake your head or wonder if this Project Owner really feels his time is worth more than your sum Designer-experience or contribution. Not to get too personal, but the arbitrary "going-rate" Owners apparently rely upon, leaves much to be desired. Often, a Lawyer, Real Estate Broker, Promo Outsourcer, Corp exec (> 200USD per hour with their trade), will post a Branding Campaign with an accompanying demand (across every potential application-need) at a rate comparable to a fraction of the ten minutes they've vested into the drafting of the actual Project Brief. Most Designers are not here to 'make a living' but merely contribute our unique efforts across the span of "X-amount of Projects at any given time" in exchange for equitable monetary compensation. Designers do not work on Attrition: sure, the world economies are experiencing some 'fluctuation,' but to expect Designers are immune their Cost of Living issues/geography's economics is simply preposterous. Remember the Golden Rule Owners, perhaps your own 'consult fee' is the appropriate barometer to consider when you post a Project. If you are a multi-millon dollar conglomerate, offer what value you can allocate toward your Branding effort. Is a Designer's effort/Work really worth a 20USD participation, if any? Are ten days research, planning, execution worth 200USD Award if chosen? The time a Designer works on your Project, is time removed from another. Your Brand is being created, for free until you select this-, or that- specific Work. Invest accordingly and reap the effort that will pay off in Brand Recognition, Trademark Protect-ability, ease of use across Mediums, etc. This rationale also applies in case you're a non-profit, chances are you take advantage of Grant dollars; your finances are private, but keep your Project demands in mind when you post an Award for Work-in-Kind. If you're a smaller entity, there is some leeway as well as long as you remember that there may be Overhead costs for Designers or there may not. In any case, the Designer's specific overhead is not the point. The Work is the issue: when you break the various requested/need of Applications down into components (A3 Color Separations, Marketing Concept, Graphic Execution, Fonticon extrapolation, Feed Icon, Signage Proof, Electronic Media, Business Card proof etc.), you begin to realize that more often than not, Owners mistakenly opt for the absolute highest value that is clearly not in line with their respective budgetary constraints. Second, I would strongly advise all Owners to GUARANTEE your Projects! There are at any given time, a number of Designers working on your Projects for free (that means "no compensation unless chosen"). If you are cautious for a couple hundred dollars, look around or at least read your options in the Terms and Conditions. If you (as an Owner) are not satisfied with the work, there is opportunity for DesignCrowd arbitration/intervention, or Project Removal/Refund. But as pointed out, it's best when Owners keep their own budgets in mind, when allocating funds to effect a result. If you are looking for a priceless Diamond for 200-300USD, you might get one-but you probably won't. Solution? Perhaps if we all acknowledge our goals here, and are realistic with our expectations. Owners can understand there is more to the Branding Contract/Work-for-Hire than throwing a couple hundred dollars into the crowd and hoping for the best. Owners can also avoid "the going rate mentality"; Designers are here for YOU, and we would love to help you Brand cogently/effectively. While Designers can be a bit more flexible than the traditional Advertising Firm, understand you are here for a reason. Designers in turn, can be pleasantly surprised when an Owner provides a balanced and coherent Guaranteed Project Brief with an Award in-line with the budget amount. And Designers will certainly execute their vision professionally in kind, right? Right. Thoughts? Ideas? Solutions?

Anonymous | 02 Jan 2013

i have found this great app that helps designers and their client to write a good, detailed creative briefs: http://briefdesigner.com/ you can also install it as Chrome web app from here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/brief-designer/jglddbemleiaphmjoglcdgpmogohlhig?hl=en&gl=IL

Anonymous | 19 Jun 2017

Thaaaank`s a lot

Suruj | 23 Jan 2019

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Design & Product

Jun 23, 2020 • 13 minutes read

How to write a powerful design brief in 9 easy steps

A design brief is a project management document outlining the specifics of a project. Here's how to create a great design brief.

Jesse Short

Have you ever heard the tale of the sinking library? The basics are this: an architect built a beautiful library, but after a few years, the building started sinking. Upon reviewing their work, the architect realized the issue: they forgot to account for the weight of the books.

Whether you're building a library or a website, most projects have a lot of moving parts. With a lot to keep track of, you might miss something critical. So how can you avoid those mistakes? How can you make sure you don't forget the "books"? For a design project to be successful, the design brief is essential.

In this article, we look at what a design brief is, why you should use one for your design projects, and share a nine-step plan to create an effective brief that helps you keep everything on track and achieve your goals.

What's a design brief, and why do you need one?

A design brief is a project management document outlining the specifics of a design project. There's no standard of what to include, but some common points are the design project overview and scope, timelines, target audience information, and budget.

There are plenty of reasons to use a design brief, but there are two that we think are most important: efficiency and direction. Whether you’re a professional delivering a new design to your client or a business looking to hire a design agency, a well-written design brief is imperative to doing great work. Showing your client an overview plan of the project means you can confirm everything before the work starts. This saves time and money for both of you.

A design brief serves as the source of truth for your project and guides the design team's overall direction. Having a well-defined brief helps designers focus on the right tasks and deliver great work.

Who should write a design brief?

If a company decides to partner with a design agency on a new design project, they need to write a design brief. Design briefs are the starting point of any design project and should provide an overview of the company, the problem to be solved, and the expectations.

Although the client creates the design brief, design agencies or freelancers usually participate in its creation. For example, clients might have a general idea of the project and know what problem they’re trying to solve, but they may not be familiar with the design process . In this case, designers work closely with the clients to help finalize the design brief and set the right goals and expectations.

What should be included in a design brief?

For a design brief to be effective, it needs to be clear and concise while including all the relevant information to give a good overview of the project. A brief can vary depending on your specific project, but in general, it should include:

• An overview of the business : This section gives designers an understanding of the client—their company, industry, market, and design needs
• Project overview and scope : In this section, you can see what work the design team will do for their client
• Information about the target audience : Relevant information might include age, gender, habits, preferences, needs, and more
• Competitor information : Noting down what competitors are doing will give you insights into your customer’s expectations and help you identify what makes you unique
• The goals of the project : This section focuses on the problem to be solved and the desired outcomes
• A project timeline or schedule : Having a schedule will help you set the right expectations and keep the project on track
• The project budget : This section should include the estimated budget for each task in the project

Now that we’ve seen how an effective design brief should look, here's how to create one in nine easy steps.

How to write a design brief

1. Start with an overview of the business

When preparing your design brief, start things off by laying out key information about the business. In the overview, you can include basic details, like the size and stage of the company, the industry they’re in, etc.

From there, you might talk about the brand’s identity and values, key differentiators, and unique selling points. If there is a “point-person” at the company, include their contact information in this section or the contact details for someone else part of the project. The overview is a key section for everyone involved in the project as it provides the required info at a glance.

2. Cover the scope

Now that the brief includes an overview of the business, you should lay out exactly what work is needed, also known as the project scope. Maybe the project is about creating a new logo for the company, doing graphic design work for a landing page, or web design for an existing product.

Both parties should agree on the scope of the project, and describe that scope in the design brief.

Be sure to be as specific as possible in this section. For example, if the project involves creating illustrations or photographs for a campaign, describe this in the design brief. If it only requires web content but not print, be sure to include those types of details so everyone is on the same page and there’s no uncertainty or wasted effort.

3. Define the audience

Frank Chimero , a designer and writer in NYC, once mentioned: "People ignore design that ignores people." Who you're designing for is just as important as what you're designing. To define the target audience, start with basic demographic information like age and gender.

From there, consider including relevant details about the audience, such as the types of stores they shops at or movies they like. You may also want to describe their familiarity with similar tools or products, or where they are most likely to interact with your content.

In some cases, someone in the company might already have drafted personas for their target audience. If not, consider building a persona for the target audience using existing customer information. To build a persona, follow these seven questions:

• Who is the customer(s) of your product or service?
• How do they use your product?
• What are they currently using (if it's a new product)?
• What are some key pain points your product or service solves?
• How does your solution benefit them?
• What causes them to make a purchase?
• What are they looking for in a product like yours?

Understanding the audience helps guide your decision-making and create useful products for the right audience.

4. Understand the competition

In almost every scenario of building products, you will be competing against another company. It's a fact of business. So it's good to have a basic understanding of the competitive landscape. When you understand what makes you different, you can create new, unique work and stand out from the competition.

That knowledge can help design teams decide on the angle of the design project and deliver something that truly resembles the company’s brand identity. In this phase, mood boards are an excellent way for designers to collect inspiration, organize ideas, and present them to the client.

Additionally, when working on digital design projects, knowing how similar products approach design may help designers understand how users complete tasks and their mental models when using comparable designed products. Conducting usability testing with competitive products is a great way to do some preliminary research and gather useful background information.

5. Set specific goals

Good design solves problems. When a company hires a design agency for a project, they’re doing it to solve an existing problem. Maybe they want to get more leads or provide a new product offering to their customers. No matter the case, there’s a specific reason for hiring professional designers, and that needs to be described in the design brief.

Determining the goals and objectives of your design project helps with direction and focus. For example, if the company needs website design services for a landing page that encourages sign-ups, the focus could be on optimizing and testing button placement and color to get a higher click-through-rate.

These goals are usually articulated by the designers with the help of the business and have usually already been investigated with user research and data. If research is part of the project, then the project’s goals should reflect that. For instance, if your design project is building a better user flow for a mobile app, then one of the goals would be to research the existing flow and investigate common issues.

Do your best to be as specific as possible when defining the project goals and objectives. The success of the project will be assessed based on whether the goals have been met or not, so the more specific you can be, the better.

6. Take inventory of what you already have

In most cases, brands will have some assets that designers will use in the project–unless they’re doing a complete rebrand. Maybe they already have a logo design they want to use or a specific page layout implemented in a previous design.

At the very least, they will probably have a typeface, brand colors, and general brand guidelines. They may also have a design system in place designers can use to inform their work.

These items have a direct impact on the design project, so make sure you take inventory of all relevant information and include it in the creative brief.

Existing creative assets can help improve efficiency by making sure you don’t redesign something you don’t need to. Be as specific as you can on how you’re going to use current assets in your work. For example, if you’re reusing brand colors, write down the hex code for those colors you’ll use in the new project.

7. Set the schedule

Setting proper expectations is crucial when taking on any new project. Depending on who you’re working with, they may not be as familiar with the design process. By laying out a detailed timeline and giving deadlines for all deliverables, you will manage expectations from the beginning and deliver your project successfully.

Having specific dates also serves as a way to keep you on track. Consider asking for feedback from all stakeholders involved in the project prior to finalizing the timelines, so everyone is comfortable with your proposal.

List out the timeframes for each part of the project. For example, if you’re working on a new design, you might give a timeline for when the initial prototype will be done, schedules for user testing , and another date for the final product launch.

8. Determine the budget

The budget is an essential aspect of any project. Both parties must agree on the budget from the start, as the budget dictates the work that will be done. In the brief, it’s important to give a breakdown of the budget for each service provided.

It might also be wise to add in some contingency cushion as additional money for unforeseen issues. You can list it that way in the budget, and explain that it's there if needed. If you don't use that by the end of the project, you can subtract it from the total.

9. Sum it all up

Finally, make sure you end the design brief with an executive summary. It may seem a bit redundant, but it's good to have an outline that includes all essential information mentioned throughout the brief. Offering a cliff-notes version at the end allows the client to review and sign-off on the project easily.

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Start using a design brief for your projects

When you've finished working on the design brief and got stakeholders' approval, it's time to start working on the design project. When you create a design brief, you compile all the essential information the design team will need during the project. Any work done during the project, such as creating a design proposal , is made easy by the design brief.

Creating a design brief is no small task, but it's worth it when done right. Not only does it help avoid roadblocks and sets proper expectations, but it can also serve as a source of truth for you to keep everything on track and moving forward—which is what you're aiming for.

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What to Write in a Design Brief – Ultimate Guide [With Example Template]

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“80% of marketers think they’re good at writing a design brief. Only 10% of agencies agree.”

— BETTERBRIEFS

Wondering how to write an effective design brief?

Coordinating between business and design teams can be challenging, especially when you are working on a long-term project with multiple goals. Sometimes, the objectives change, crucial details get lost, and revision documents pile up, causing chaos and delaying the project.

However, there is a way you can set the right expectations from the onset of the project and avoid the mayhem — using a design brief from the beginning. A design brief is primarily a project management document that summarizes the business goals, project scope and workflow.

In this blog, we’ll cover what is in a design brief, a step-by-step approach to creating an effective design brief, and the difference between a good and bad design brief. We will also share how we at Design Shifu help our clients create an effective design brief within minutes that you can use as a design brief example template for your projects.

What is a design brief?

Cookbooks became popular not just because they outline the steps of a meal. The recipes in a cookbook ensure great results every time you step into the kitchen. A cookbook has all the details — from the time required to ingredients to necessary kitchen appliances — it sets the expectations right from the start. 

While preparing the dish, the cook can refer to the recipe to ensure they do not miss a step or an ingredient.

Similarly, a design brief acts like a roadmap that outlines the overview of the project with details like business goals, project scope, strategy, timelines and budget. 

Why should you have a design brief?

A good design brief can simplify your project management, collaboration and coordination. There are several reasons companies develop design briefs before starting a project. Let’s discuss the essential ones.

Streamlined workflow

Determining business and project goals, timelines, and budgets from the beginning helps teams to manage internal processes, deadlines, and other projects effectively and coordinate more openly and constructively. 

Efficient Collaboration

Many teams spend hours repeatedly discussing and sharing the same things to bring everyone on the same page. With a detailed design brief, you can eliminate long email threads, untimely phone calls, messages, slack conversations and overall chaos. 

Even if you decide to onboard a new member in the middle of a project, you can easily debrief, and they can catch up quickly and follow along.

Clear Direction

When you start the process, members often get distracted and start delving into new ideas deviating from the initial goals. A design brief keeps you on the right track and focused on the agenda. There is a single source of truth that everyone can refer to. 

Accountability

Often, miscommunication leads to distrust and disappointment, ending relationships on bad terms. Setting clear goals and objectives holds both parties responsible for any changes in the middle of a project.

So that nobody gets to say, “We didn’t ask for that!” or “You didn’t tell us to do so.” 

Who should write a design brief?

Generally, businesses share the design brief with the design team, agency, or freelancers. However, if a company does not know what to do with a design brief or if they have a very broad idea of what they want but are unsure about how to proceed, then they can reach out to the design team. Often, design teams are happy to pitch in to develop the design brief to define the problem, goal, project scope, deadlines and budgets to systematize the project from start to finish and keep everyone on board.

What is in a design brief?

A good design brief is clear and concise with relevant information. There’s no one way to create a design brief, but here are a few details that every design brief must include:

Company/Business Overview

A company profile helps designers to understand a business, its background, history and industry. It includes the client name, market, product lines, value proposition, brand mission vision, core values, key stakeholders, and competitors. 

Project Overview

A project overview defines the problem, the why behind the project, goals and objectives, requirements, and the target audience.

Project timelines and budget

Planning a schedule and budget helps to set realistic demands and manage priorities efficiently. It also helps in eliminating further conflicts regarding budgets.

Assets and tools

A design brief with case studies, research, analysis, tools and assets minimizes back and forth between teams and speeds up the progress. 

Now that we’ve covered what’s in a design brief, let’s walk through the 10 steps to create an effective design brief. 

Steps to writing a design brief

1. lay out the business overview..

The first section should map out critical information about the business. Include basic details that will help the designers to understand who you are, what you do, and what differentiates you from the others in the market.

Mention key stakeholders of the business and the point of contact (the person they can contact during the project). 

2. Determine the scope.

Clarify design requirements from the get-go to avoid arguments down the line. Be specific while mentioning the requirements. Is it a logo? Is it a website or product packaging? How many iterations do you need? Do you want a print version or an RGB format? 

State your requirements clearly.

3. Define the audience.

A solid understanding of your audience helps you deliver better results. More often than not, a business knows more about its audience. As a marketing manager, you must have more insights about your target audience. 

However, if you don’t know how to create buyer personas, ask the design team to help you. If you have an active website, analyze advanced segments in Google Analytics reports that provide demographics and psychographic insights.

Don’t know how to build a user persona? Check out HubSpot’s blog on How to Create Detailed Buyer Personas for Your Business [Free Persona Template] to make detailed and useful personas that you can use to attract high-value leads and customers.

Customer personas can be quite detailed and take up plenty of space in your brief. Stick to 2-3 personas for maximum impact.

4. Unravel the competition.

What makes a great product is that it identifies the gap in competitors’ products and fulfills them. Mention your direct and indirect competitors, their offerings and USPs. Share the critical details about their product lines.

It will help the design team understand the market landscape and your positioning. It opens an opportunity to explore new angles, twist the existing ones and structure your message such that you can leverage the untapped gaps in the market.

5. Set specific goals & objectives.

While a goal communicates the project’s overall purpose, objectives state the measures of success. Describe what you aim to achieve with the project and mention the metrics and outcomes you will use to track its success. 

Is it more sign-ups? Are you reinventing the company’s identity? Do you want to increase website traffic?

What are you planning? Would you need more resources to achieve it? What are the metrics that you will use? Write them.

6. Project Deliverables & Requirements

Defining scope is one thing but setting clear deliverables is another. For example, a request for a png file instead of a jpeg might seem minuscule, but it can cause a lot of delays and back and forth between teams. So here are a few things that you should clarify: 

• File resolutions
• File formats
• Color palette
• Associated copy documents

7. Assets & materials 

Regardless of whether it is your first design brief, you must have documents and assets that can help designers on the project, for example, buyer personas or company logos. Include brand guidelines, mockups, mood boards, images, graphics, and videos. 

For example, if your goal is to redesign the product packaging while keeping the color palette and logo the same, you can share the hex codes for colors and logos in all file formats. 

Don’t leave out any information that may lead to unnecessary back and forth. Some brands may also have a design system in place. If you’re one of them, please feel free to share it with the agency, freelancer, or designer.

8. Set the schedule.

Plan a schedule and create timelines for each deliverable to ensure the smooth ongoing of the project and increase productivity. We also suggest that you leave breathing room for unexpected delays and changes. 

A schedule will help you set realistic and measurable timelines. Set milestones throughout the plan for submitting first drafts, revisions, meetings, and completion so each member can work accordingly. Mark dates for the development process, update meetings, submissions, edits, and review periods.

9. Determine the budget & constraints

Budgeting is an indispensable part of any project. Set aside the budget before starting the project to know where you stand and how much you can afford and allocate.

Assign charges to each deliverable. This helps you to avoid scope creep and lose track of billable hours. You can also add a contingency cushion as additional money for unforeseen challenges that can be subtracted from the total if not used.

Alternatively, you can avail services of Design Shifu , which comes as a flat monthly subscription letting you fix your design expenses. You get a dedicated designer and unlimited graphics for every design need, check out the plans now.

Design Brief Template and Example

Finally, summarize the entire document to give a gist so a decision-maker can review it at a glance. Include all the relevant details that you have covered in the document.

At Design Shifu , we have simplified the process of creating briefs using a set of questions. When our clients send their design requests, they have to answer a set of essential questions which help us design an effective design brief.

Look how easy it is to design with us:

You can create a similar template so that you do not have to start from scratch every time you work with a design team or agency.

Good brief vs. Bad brief: Do’s and Don’ts of a design brief

Fact check and edit.

Before submitting the design brief, ensure all the information added is updated and accurate. A piece of outdated information can cause a lot of wasted hours and effort. 

Review the document for spelling and grammatical errors. Remove anything irrelevant. Ask yourself in every section, “Is it essential?” Have at least 2-3 rounds of edits before submission.

The design brief communicates the way you present and conduct your business. A suitable format speaks a lot about your business. Format it to keep it readable, legible, and pleasing to the eyes. 

• Highlight and bold to emphasize any details. 
• Use headings and subheadings. 
• Set margins. 
• Use an easy-to-read typeface and font size.
• Avoid too many colors and decorative fonts.

Use online tools

Many tools and templates are available in the market to help you create a design brief. You can also use Google Docs. An online document ensures everyone uses the same brief. 

Avoid offline files like PDFs or Word docs because it may lead to outdated versions and attachments bouncing around in boxes. 

Take feedback and suggestions.

Do not build the design brief alone. Instead, involve key stakeholders and decision-makers before finalizing. This will help you eliminate further revisions and dump the entire doc in the trash if you miss an essential detail.

It’s worth your effort.

By now, you will know what a design brief is, what is in a design brief, and how you can create an effective design brief for successful project completion. Feel free to use our design brief example template to create your own. 

A design brief may seem daunting and time-consuming. Still, it’s worth every minute of your time because it will help you establish realistic expectations, align the workflow, and avoid potential disputes and arguments in the future. In addition, setting a clear design brief allows teams to collaborate effectively, avoid roadblocks, and stay on track. Once you create a successful design brief, you can use the same template for your future projects and even frame case studies.

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What Is a Design Brief and How to Write It? [+Example]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Take the time to learn why user experience design briefs are essential and how they can help you. UX designers bring their expertise to every project they take on. If you don’t know what a UX design brief is, here’s an article on writing one that will outline everything you need to know.

If you like videos, here is a quick one explaining what is a design brief and why you need one! ⬇️

What is a design brief?

A design brief is a document that outlines the goals, project scope , budget, design requirement s, and other core detail s of a new project . It serves to align the vision of all the stakeholders on how the final deliverable should look and what purpose it should serve.

There are two components to a design brief: the problem to be solved and the solution to be designed . The audience for this document is usually the director of product development, who may or may not have read it before handing it over to you.

A design brief is both a guide and a tool. It shouldn’t be a written document full of text and unnecessary details. In addition to explaining what the product aims to achieve, it is essential to demonstrate its user interface concept and highlight its unique features. A good design brief is organized, focused on one main idea or idea set, unambiguous, and concise. There is an example at the end of this article.

A design brief is a key that unlocks the door to a successful product. Having a good idea is not enough; you must know what you’re doing and when.

A UX design brief is essentially a more detailed version of your design brief. It contains information such as key element s, creative brief s, budget constrains, graphic design , project budget and many more. Further more it contains information on how users will interact with your app or website, what they’ll see and do when using it, and how you plan to measure their satisfaction with it.

Why do you need a design brief?

A design brief is an excellent tool for ensuring that your website will come out user-friendly and engaging. It helps design team understand how they can do their best to create an experience that will meet the needs of their users while also making sure that it is functional.

Usability testing

Testing with help of  user behavior analytics tools can teach you, how users navigate different pages, where they are clicking, what they are looking at, and any errors that may arise. This can help you fix these issues quickly and prevent them from happening again in future tests.

Content strategy

It will allow you to plan out what content is needed for each page so that it doesn’t feel like too much or too little information for users to wade through. It also allows you to see if there are any dead ends or bottlenecks on your site so that you can create an effective design.

A design brief is a document that provides a high-level overview of the project and its goals. It’s a way to get everyone on the same page so that everyone knows what needs to be done as well as why it needs to be done.

Understand users better

A design brief helps determine your ideal customers’ needs and how they want to interact with your product. The goal is to determine who the product is intended for and how they will use it.

User Experience Map

In addition, it helps you create a user experience map — a visual representation of all the features in your product, from top to bottom, as well as other aspects like colors, fonts, and images. Use  UX research tools  for better user experience mapping. It is essential to every design process because it helps identify problems early on so that you can provide solutions before they become big problems.

What is in a design brief?

A well-written design brief defines the problems you’re trying to solve, the business value that your product or service will provide, as well as the proposed solution. It outlines the goals, budget constraint s, file format s and business objective of your project.

Design briefs are usually communicated to team members working on the project. They typically have a list of tasks and deliverables, a timeline for completion, as well as information about how each task affects other tasks.

A good design brief should include:

1. Project description

Are you working on a new website, a product prototype, UX work, or a redesign? The project could be e-commerce, an app, an analytics platform, etc. This can be summarized in a couple of straight-to-the-point sentences .

2. Purpose of the design brief

The purpose of your document should be clear from the beginning. It should provide enough information for everyone in your team to understand what they’re working on while giving them enough detail to prepare themselves for their role in helping with the entire process. For your team it might be crucial to include design examples, mood boards, product designs, basically everything that will help your team during the whole project.

3. Target audience

A good design brief will help you and your team understand the target audience for your product. There are  customer insight tools , which helps you to understand your audience and provide data-driven results. The target audience is vital because it can inform how you create a user experience and what elements of that experience should be prioritized.

You may want to consider:

• Who are the users of your product? This could include people who use it as part of their daily lives (e.g., parents with children) or those who may only use it occasionally (e.g., professionals).
• What do they need to accomplish? In general, this should be something concrete—for example, “I want to learn more about [insert topic]”—and not just vague statements like “I need help with [insert task].” You’ll also want to get into specific details about how people will interact with each component of your product and any potential problems or issues that might arise during use (e.g., anxiety when using an app).

4. Project objectives

Project objectives are a great place to start because they define the why and how of your project . Doing this would make it easy for you to decide what tasks need to be completed, how long those tasks should take, and who should be involved. You can also use these objectives as a baseline for measuring success or failure after completing the project.

5. Competitive research

In any design brief, competitive research is essential. It will help you understand the market, which can be a source of inspiration for your products and services. Competitors can also provide ideas for new concepts or design choices that you might not have thought about otherwise. Visit our guides to learn more about UX research.

You should include competitor analysis in your design brief because every company needs to do it regardless of size or industry.

6. Business case

Why is this product necessary for your organization? Why will it generate revenue and increase market share? What’s at stake if this product doesn’t exist?

7. Rationale

Why are you building this thing in particular? What do you hope to achieve with this experience or outcome? What are your vision statements around what you want users to see and do with your product or service? How new design can improve user experience compared to previous design.

8. Timeline and Budget

You’ll want to get your design brief done early so that stakeholders and clients will have time to review it. It is crucial to communicate well to take this step. Everyone must agree on what they need and how they feel about it. Listen carefully to each person’s perspective and respond accordingly.

After everyone has reviewed the design brief (and possibly made changes), you will need them to work together again to create content for this document, including any additional information that might be of interest (such as business objectives, project budget, additional details).

How to write a design brief

Create a header

A header is the first thing your customer sees when they open the design brief. Your header should be visually appealing, easy to understand and engage with and inform the client about the services you render.

If you’re designing a website, your header will probably be made up of images that represent your brand’s core values or include an image that represents your logo. The goal is to ensure visitors know what they’re getting into as soon as they land on your site.

Give an overview of the project

The second step in writing a UX design brief is to give an overview of the project. The goal is to define the project and how it will work in order to help you organize  UX strategy , ideas and provide a framework for your team.

First, identify the type of project you are writing the design brief for. What type of business is it? Is it a startup or an established business? Once you know these things, you will understand what user experience (UX) aspects are essential for this business.

Identify your target audience

The next step in writing a UX design brief is to discuss who the design is targeted at and who its competitors are. You will know more about your users by using  customer feedback tools.  Additionally you learn how they interact with their devices, and why they need them.

Before writing your UX design brief, you must consider who your audience will benefit from this information. Who do you want to reach out to?

Think about these questions before you start writing your UX design brief. This will help you develop ideas for what makes your product unique and why users should care.

Outline the project’s budget

This step will help you decide how much time, money, and materials you need to complete the project.

It’s not just about how much it will cost to make the product or service. It also includes information about potential costs if you need to hire someone else for additional work or change plans because of unforeseen circumstances. This way you’ll be able to create a realistic budget for the project.

Give an outline of the deliverables for the project

In this step, you’ll outline your project’s critical components. You can create a design brief and start the project using the outline. This will help you set expectations with your clients, so that they know what to expect from your work.

Finalize the design brief

Describe the metrics and standards for evaluating the brief. You and your client will both need to sign many design briefs. Additionally, you can emphasize any requirements or creative direction required for the project to succeed. It is good to provide contact details in the design brief.

Design brief example

A design brief example is provided below:

Design Brief

Submitted by: Alice Jameson

Date: March 03, 2023

Company Overview

Didi Connect has over 50,000 clients and is one of the top public relations companies in the world. The company helps businesses and brands get in the spotlight by offering promotional services. Customers can communicate via its Mobile App with Didi Connect’s customer service representatives.

Project Overview

This project aims to improve the user experience of the company’s mobile app, focusing primarily on its design.

Project goal s and objectives

We aim to improve the user rating of our mobile application by 25% in the application store by the end of the year by developing a new design. In this project, we aim to:

• 20% reduction in bounce rate
• Create interactive interfaces to improve website navigation

Target audience

Business owners and companies living in New York who want the proper brand exposure.

Competitor analysis

Top Competitors make the mobile app experience as simple as possible. Recent competitors designed their pages, prioritizing only user experience. Didi Connect plans to make its website application easier to navigate with simple icons, clear layouts, and colors.

The budget for this project is $2,500, which includes:

• $2,000 for the design team fees
• $500 for miscellaneous charges

Project Timeline

There are five steps in this design project timeline. Three days would be needed for the design ideation phase, two days for the exploration phase, and two days for the wireframe and design. The creation of the design and post-launch assistance would require fourteen days altogether.

Deliverables

The project requires a mobile application design with a better, improved user experience.

Conclusion and evaluation

The company intends to inform customers about the design modifications and keep track of client feedback until the end of the year.

Contact info rmation

We can assist you with more information about this design project if you contact us at:

Joe Johnson

Design Lead, DesignGO

[email protected]

785-293-8680

Maximizing the potential of the project

A good design brief helps you and your client or stakeholders get the most out of their project. It would help if you wrote in a clear, concise, and easy-to-read manner.

The more details you can include, the more effective design brief you create. Of course, there are no hard-and-fast rules regarding writing briefs. You should tailor each one according to its needs, but having an idea about what types of users will be involved with any given project is always helpful!

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People also ask (FAQ)

A design brief has several important components:

• Company overview
• The project description
• Project goals and objectives
• The target audience
• Competitive research
• Bussiness case rationale

A design brief helps to define the scope of the project, establish expectations for the project, and provide a clear understanding of the project to all parties involved. It helps ensure that the project meets the client’s needs and requirements, while also facilitating communication and collaboration between the client and the designer.

A design statement is a part of the design brief, where what the design solution should do is outlined. It doesn’t specify how it should do it or any possible constraints.

Eniola Olaniyi is a Content Writer at UXtweak, where she focuses on creating informative and engaging content related to user experience and design. With a background in UX design, Eniola is on a mission to help businesses create products and services that meet the needs of their users. In her role at UXtweak, Eniola works closely with other writers to apply her UX expertise, research the topics and come up with valuable content pieces. When she's not working, Eniola enjoys reading articles and case studies on UX design and exploring new ways to enhance her writing skills.

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How to Draft a Design Brief for Successful Projects

Design Paula Borowska • February 03, 2020 • 7 minutes READ

A design brief is a document that helps a designer and client align on project expectations; this makes the project much easier to manage as it’s being worked on. The brief identifies critical pieces of information, such as scope, that set the right expectation on what the specific project is meant to accomplish, how it will be worked on, and so on.

There are numerous benefits to using a design brief, including:

• Get an understanding of client’s needs and expectations for a project
• Gain specs, insights, or research information upfront
• Gives the client peace of mind and a sense of involvement in their project request
• Lays out the timeline, milestones, and critical players who will be involved which will later help keep the project on track
• Understand the depth of the project
• Improves communications and working relationships
• Allows any misconceptions or missing information to be brought up for discussion

A thorough design brief is going to guide the upcoming project to the right goals as well as be a great back-up document in case the project blows out of proportion. Both you and your client can have a reference file if a disagreement about the project’s details ever arises. Additionally, a well-written design brief is going to be a lifesaver when you need to talk about the project in the future, such as in a case study, interview, or a performance review.

Who can benefit from a design brief?

Design briefs are beneficial to freelance designers and in-house design teams. They are just as useful for in-house projects where the client is a marketer requesting a landing page, for example. It’s not a tool just for independent contractors.

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Elements of a Reliable Design Brief

Although design briefs come in various forms, shapes, and sizes, the tutorial below will walk you through essential items that every brief should cover – no matter how informally. At the end of this tutorial, you will find a link to a design brief template that you can copy for yourself and modify it as needed.

Project Overview and Scope

A good project overview will address two key questions: what and why? What are you going to work on, and why does this project need to get done? The project overview summarizes the intention, goals, and scope. Because it’s a summary, it’s okay to keep this section short and straightforward, the rest of the brief will go into more detail .

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“What” refers to the scope and scale of the project. What is the project about? Is it a redesign or a new feature? What will the deliverables be?

“Why” refers to the design problem the client is facing and how you’re going to help them with it. Defining the scope of the project early on is a must since it will prevent scope creep. Even if necessary additions will have to be made, they can become a new project entirely.

• What are you working on in this project?
• Why are you doing it?

Goals and Objectives

“Goals describe the overall purpose of the project, while objectives are concrete measures of success in reaching a goal.” – Maria Jennings

Maria said it well! This section of the design brief should focus on the problem at hand and the desired outcomes. A website or landing page project will most likely aim to improve revenue, traffic, or leads. An in-app project, such as adding a new feature, will most likely focus on engagement or retention. Quality goals specify both the desired effect and its timeline.

Example goals include:

• Reduce blog bounce rate by 40% in the next three months
• Increase customer product engagement by 10% month over month in the first two quarters of 2020
• Increase monthly email subscribers by 25% in a certain time frame
• Grow average weekly revenue by 10% month over month

If you establish the project goals and objectives up front, you’ll have something to go back to when making design decisions. It takes the ambiguity out and helps your client see the direct value you bring to their business upon completion.

• What is this project meant to achieve?
• What will success look like for this project?
• What insights can guide the redesign toward success?

Company and Brand Overview

Every thorough design brief starts with information about the client, specifically their brand and business. This is more necessary for freelancers since they aren’t as familiar with the client’s company.

• What are the client’s key products or services? What do they do?
• How big is the company and its market?
• What makes the company unique?

The point here is to get a general sense of your client’s company. It will give your client peace of mind by demonstrating to them you have an understanding of their company, their market, and their current design needs.

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Target Audience

Understanding a client’s target audience plays a big part in nailing down the right UX . Whether this project aims at a more general audience or a specific one, get as much information as possible. For in-house teams, it might be as simple as linking to one of your personas. For freelancers, it might require a bit more note-taking, especially if your client doesn’t have documents to share. But, if they do, that’s great! Iterate on it. It will further show them you have a full understanding of their business and needs.

Things to note about the target audience:

• Age, gender, location, etc…
• Psychographics
• Social media of choice
• Relevant habits
• Customer journeys and mindsets

Milestones and Schedule

Milestones are especially critical the larger the project is. If you’d like, you can combine the schedule section of your design brief with the budget as they are often related. Nevertheless, that will depend on your pricing structure, and it doesn’t apply to in-house teams either.

Writing out different milestones will help non-creatives and non-designers to get an understanding of your design process, which is often a mystery to them. Transparency can go a long way to setting expectations and having a better working relationship.

Writing out a rough timeline for milestones is essential. Non-designers often don’t know or realize how long something might take, which makes this the perfect opportunity for you to set the right expectations. If there are hard deadlines the client needs you to meet, this is the place to include them.

Additionally, having a schedule is going to keep the project flowing more smoothly and more on track. If the client has specific deadlines that you find unrealistic or too tight, discuss it right away.

Also, make sure to outline the schedule for the client as well!

• When are they expected to provide you initial information?
• What’s the required time frame for giving feedback or answering emails?

Within the budget section of your design brief, make sure to earmark the budget for all tasks within the project. This may include research, testing, copywriting, or revisions. If you can, provide a pricing table. This is another good way to avoid scope creep.

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Deliverables

The last item in a design brief should be a list of deliverables. Naturally, they will vary depending on the scope and type of project. If you’re providing various deliverables , you can tie them back to the defined milestone or provide a simple list.

• What deliverables should the client expect at the completion of the project or each milestone?

Stakeholders and Review Process

You’ll want to identify who the stakeholders and decision-makers for the project. Keep it to one or two people if possible. The more stakeholders on a project, the more people will be giving out their opinions, which can quickly derail a project into one by a committee and significantly impact deadlines.

It’s perfectly normal for a larger corporation to want to involve many people in reviewing your work as a contractor – more so, the bigger the project is. That’s why you should also define the review and input process.

After naming the one or two stakeholders, you’ll want to give them instructions on how to best provide with feedback. To avoid designing by committee, you can tell your client that they can review the designs internally among themselves and write up their feedback, which you will then discuss directly with stakeholders and continue accordingly. It doesn’t hurt to iterate on how long the client has to provide feedback or respond to emails and requests.

• Who are the stakeholders?
• What is the design review process like?
• What is expected of the client in this process?

A Few More Things to Add to Your Design Brief

So far, we’ve discussed many different things to include in your design brief that will ensure your projects are set up for success. There are, however, a bunch of other things you may want to include if you think they will help make your design brief even more successful:

• Competitive analysis. Find out information and insight into your client’s competition will help you make better design decisions.
• Analytical data/insights. Was this project brought on because of a newfound idea? If so, what was it? What kind of information do they have about their customers’ behaviors, likes, dislikes, needs, etc. that will be fundamental in driving this project (or simply for you to know about)?
• Branding information. Especially helpful in a rebranding project, it’s important to take note of the client’s branding concerns, or desires. It’s also never a bad idea to identify key branding details that will be critical to the design project at hand.

Download Free Design Brief Template

And there you have it! A rundown of all the essential details of a successful design brief. The more information you provide, the better the expectations are for a project. It’s a pretty flexible framework that will work for freelance designers and in-house designers.

Before you get started on your next design project, don’t forget to grab your free design brief template ( .docx and .pdf ) and modify it as necessary!

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Paula Borowska

Paula Borowska is an innovative and insightful Senior UX Designer at CVS Health, known for her relentless pursuit of designing the best user experiences. As an expert in design systems, user testing, accessibility, and cross-team collaboration, Paula is dedicated to enhancing digital experiences for all users.

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Writing a design brief can be time consuming and frustrating.

The thought of sitting down to create a design brief can scare even the most seasoned of marketing managers because it can be a tricky task! But not with our help.

A design brief is a vital document used to help communication between yourself and your chosen design agency.

It forms the fundamentals of your design project, and keeps everything in check if the wheels start to wobble a little bit.

The Design Brief Template

The Design Brief Template is a free template that will help you get the foundation for your design project right. ...

Even if you’re just scoping out agencies to work with, having a well thought out design brief will make obtaining a quote for your design work easier.

Some design projects you might have in mind could include:

• Introducing a new brand to the market
• Rebranding your company
• Launching a new website
• Improving your content marketing efforts
• Launching a new digital marketing campaign
• Expanding your product range
• Running a print advertising campaign
• Designing a new exhibition stand

In any of these cases, a well written design brief will help to keep your project running smoothly. It keeps everyone on the same page, aligning expectations, and making sure both parties understand the goals of the project.

Trying to run a design project without a brief is difficult because you’re relying on telephone calls, email threads, and handwritten notes – a recipe for disaster.

If you’d rather watch us talk about design briefs than read about them, we’ve created a video to help out:

What Is a Design Brief?

A design brief is a written document that tells your chosen agency everything they need to know about your design project.

It doesn’t have to be huge as it’s a top level overview of the project that can be used to help external branding and design agencies understand more about your business.

Typically it’s served up as a Word Document or PDF, but some marketers like to get crazy with Powerpoint too and make their brief that way!

From a practicality point of view, the commenting features in a Word Doc, Google Doc, or PDF make it easiest for your design agency as this way, you can share ideas back and forth.

Remember a design brief is not set in stone. It’s supposed to evolve as you think of new and exciting ways to bring your brand to life.

What Is a Design Brief Used For?

A design brief is used to communicate your requirements with a handful of selected design agencies.

Typically, it’s a Company Director, Marketing Director, Marketing Manager, or Marketing Executive that is tasked with writing the design brief.

But, if you’re a startup founder or small business owner, then you should learn how to write a design brief too.

Here’s an example of when you should write a design brief:

If you’re a Marketing Director working at a business who is looking to launch a new brand, you would send your design brief to agencies that offer branding services that you want to contact about your new launch.

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.

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.

Design Briefs vs RFPs

If you’re based in North America, it’s quite common for briefs to be classed as an RFP (request for proposal) or an RFQ (request for quotation).

We’ve got an entirely separate post about that. So if that seems more inline with your requirements, go ahead and check out How to Write an RFP or RFQ .

Typically there’s not much difference, but an RFP can be more widely focused than just on design. Have a read anyway and pop back here if you’re looking for a design project!

Why Is a Design Brief Important?

By writing a design brief, you’re getting the ideas for your project out of your head, and down on paper. This helps drive a better understanding of your project from all parties involved.

When contacting agencies, you’re hoping for several things:

• They know about your industry
• They know about your company
• They’re excited about your project

But none of these things are a given.

Your design brief serves to make these things a reality.

No agency on earth can know the ins-and-outs of every single industry on earth. Enter your design brief.

The chances are, unless you’re the Marketing Director of a huge company, they won’t have come across you. Enter your design brief.

And how are they going to get excited about your project if they don’t know anything about it Enter your design brief.

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.”

For all emails like this do pique your interest, it’s always a lot more exciting to receive an email with a brief attached. You don’t want the agency to think this is just a scattergun approach and you’re just reaching out to every agency there is.

You want to include enough information to get the cogs turning.

Let us know why you’re reaching out, and how we can partner with you to solve your problems. It’s always great to get an insight into the project first to think of new ideas.

Who Should Write a Design Brief?

If you or your company are looking to partner with a design agency on a project, then you need to write a design brief.

We find with SMEs and larger companies, it’s usually the Marketing Director, Marketing Manager, or someone on the Marketing Team that would be in charge of creating or writing the design brief. Then, Marketing Executives would use it when reaching out to potential design agency partners.

In smaller companies, it’ll usually be the owner/operator of the business. In this situation, they’re usually quite time poor, and the brief will be less comprehensive.

And that’s not a problem either!

Like we said earlier, it doesn’t have to be a huge document. We’re giving a taste of what we think the design project might be and what we might need.

It’s important to keep in mind that your design brief should highlight the problems you’re facing. Not the solutions you need.

You focus on the problem, and let your agency focus on fixing it for you.

A good design agency can help you formalise or build on your design brief, by dissecting it and asking you thoughtful and insightful questions.

Your design brief isn’t a finished article. It’s an overview that can be fleshed out and finalised with your chosen agency.

Good design work comes from good partnerships.

Learning to trust your chosen design agency early on will help deliver better results for your business in the long run.

Design agencies have a poor reputation, because unfortunately, there are a lot of unscrupulous people out there.

If you follow these steps , you should be able to find a great design agency to work with.

What Sort of Projects are Design Briefs Used For?

The design brief is a document used across a wide range of industries.

We see design briefs used in a range of different projects, including:

• Branding and Rebranding
• Website Design
• Architecture
• Interior Design
• Fashion Design

Chances are, your design brief will come in useful across most design related industries.

Whether that’s a packaging project , or an ecommerce website project, a design brief gives you something more to work with than a “blank canvas.”

The typical projects we see at Canny that come in accompanied by a brief are:

• Branding projects (where a range of branding services are typically required)
• Rebranding projects (when an existing company needs to change)
• Website projects (be it a standard website or something more complex)

At the end of the day, a well written design brief will make everybody’s life easier.

If you’re finding it difficult to make, then stop right there. Try a different way.

Maybe you can record yourself describing a bit about your business and the problems you’re facing.

It doesn’t always have to be a standard written document!

Do what works, just get your ideas about your project documented so your chosen agency can start to help you out.

Now that we’ve talked about design briefs in general, let’s jump into some frequently asked questions.

Design Brief FAQs

Just a list of the most frequently asked questions on design briefs:

What is a Design Brief?

A design brief is a very important document used to help you communicate with a design agency of your choosing, be it Canny Creative or whomever.

Why Do We Need a Design Brief?

A design brief forms the fundamentals of your design project, and keeps everything in check so that you don’t start to lose track of your original idea.

In other words, it keeps everything in check to ensure that the work is meets your expectations and requirements.

In SMEs and other larger companies, it’s person responsible for writing a design brief is typically the Marketing Director, Marketing Manager, or someone else occupying the Marketing Team.

In terms of smaller companies, it’ll usually be the owner/operator of the business writing it.

People Also Ask: How Long Should a Design Brief Be?

A design brief should be as long as you need it to be. It’s a cop-out answer, I know, but design tasks vary in size and scale, so to give you an accurate word count would be next to impossible.

What Should Be Included In Your Design Brief?

Writing a good design brief is no easy task. And if you’ve never done it before, expect to spend a good chunk of time writing and reworking it.

You need to make your brief easy to understand, compact enough to retain interest, but comprehensive enough to give a good overview of your situation.

So, what should be included in your design brief?

As a top level overview, a written design brief should include:

• An Overview of Your Business
• The Objectives of Your Design Project
• Your Target Audience and Market
• The Problem You’re Facing
• Project Specific Information
• More About Your Business
• Examples of Work You Like
• Competitor Information
• Project Timescales
• Project Deliverables
• Project Budget

Contact Information

• How the Project will Be Awarded
• Required Response

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.

For now, let’s take a look at writing a design brief based on the outline above. This is also the format that our design brief template follows.

So, how do you write a design brief? Let’s dive in.

An overview of your business

The first thing you should explain when writing your design brief, is about your business and the sector you work in.

Try to answer the following questions in your business overview:

• What do you do and how do you make your money?
• How do customers currently buy from your business?
• What makes your business unique within the marketplace?

Every design project relies on all parties having a clear understanding of the business they’re working with and the sector they’re working in.

The more you can offer in the first instance here, the better.

For example:

• At Canny Creative, we create brands, websites, and content plans that get our clients real business results.
• Currently, most of our clients come through our website, thanks to our content strategy. Because our content appeals globally , we have clients across the world.
• What makes us unique in the market is our partnership based approach. We treat our clients’ businesses like they’re our own, rather than a quick cash grab.

This sort of simple information is a great way to kick off your design brief and helps frame the information that follows.

The objectives of your design project

Your company doesn’t just decide to rebrand or build a website at random, there’s always a driving factor.

Perhaps your website isn’t mobile friendly , or the brand has moved in a new direction and your identity needs updated to reflect that.

It’s great that a decision has been made, but let your design agency know why.

Then get clear on your goals.

Your goal for a branding project, could simply be something like:

“We need a new brand identity to help us stand out from the noise. The market place we operate in is crowded. Therefore, differentiation matters. Our space is saturated with boring brands, we want to make a difference with the way we look.”

The goal here is differentiation. Simple enough.

A website project goal could be even more basic:

“Our website doesn’t sell enough products. We want to know why, and then make the necessary adjustments to make it convert more of our visitors into paying customers.”

Having a goal not only gives your agency something to work towards, it also gives you something to measure against.

How to measure if your objectives have been met

Another thing to ask yourself here is, “what will make this project a success?”

This links back to the goals and objectives of your project.

If you’re going to judge its success or failure, it’s only fair to let the agency you work with know what the criteria are.

For example, if you’re hoping to 10x your sales, you need to include this in the design brief.

Because it’ll change how the agency approaches your project from the outset.

Rather than spending time on creating pixel perfect website designs, they’ll be running quick tests for conversions and designing around the results.

Having a set of “success factors” can help all parties drive the correct response and results. The more information you can give your agency the better.

It ensures everyone knows what their responsibilities are, and will help to create the project plan.

Your target audience and market

One of the most important things to include when you write your design brief, is a section about your target audience .

Here’s the deal: Design is often used to solve problems for your customers, as well as your business.

The job of a design agency isn’t just to make your brand look pretty. Sure, that might help at times, but at its core, your branding should serve as a problem solving tool.

A brand is a set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that last, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to chose your product over another – Seth Godin

You need to communicate with your audience about how you fulfil their wants and needs. Crafting your brand is the way to ensure this happens.

Consider the following scenario:

Your website isn’t converting visitors into customers.

And why is that? It’s because your website isn’t working for your customers so they’re bouncing back and finding someone else.

Chances are it’s not communicating your offering properly, or making you look professional. These are both things that will put your customers off and take them back to Google.

More often than not, a design agency is responsible for designing for your customers, to help solve problems for your company.

Therefore, it’s important that they know what your target audience looks like. If you’re struggling to identify your ideal consumer then it sounds like you need our audience persona worksheet.

We’ve also got a great post here about defining your target audience.

Key questions when defining your target market

Essentially, you need to know the demographic traits and psychographic characteristics of your audience.

Think about who your ideal customer is, and build your persona around them.

On top of thinking about demographics and psychographics, I love asking the following questions:

• What does their family structure look like?
• What type of car do they drive?
• Are they a pet owner?
• What newspaper/magazines do they read?
• Which websites do they visit? And for what purpose?

I often find simple questions like this help a lot more when creating design work, than just listing demographic information and psychographic traits.

When creating your customer persona or customer profile, try to list out the basic information about your customers, but also:

• Brands/influencers they buy or follow
• Their fears
• Their goals and objectives
• What challenges they’re facing
• What objections they have to your business
• What their hobbies and interests are

Knowing this information will help inform your design project.

By knowing which brands they buy into, you can tell what sort of style they like. By addressing their objections, you can make educated website copy, and so on.

The more you can profile about your demographic, the more well rounded and informed your design brief will be. In turn, when handled by a professional design agency, this will result in a design project that drives real business results. By understanding who you’re trying to target, your chosen agency will ensure your branding is pitched at the right level.

Customer personas should take up quite a chunk of your design brief. Make sure you include 2 or 3 examples!

The problem you’re facing

The objective of your design project is one thing, but the problem you’re facing as a business is something else entirely.

Goals and objectives focus on where you want to be.

The problem you’re facing focuses on the here and now.

Here’s an example:

“Our website isn’t generating enough leads for our business.”

That’s a problem that needs unpicked a little.

• Is there something wrong with your website design?
• Are you driving enough traffic to your website in the first place?
• Do your contact forms work?
• Are you using enough trust indicators across your website?
• Is your website copy strong enough?

Although it can seem a little self-deprecating, deep diving into the real world problems you face as a business is the only way to solve them.

Try and get to the heart of the matter, rather than skirting around the edges. If you know there are deep rooted problems, get them noted down. It’s better to pain the fullest picture possible.

You’ve done the hard part, which is realising the problem you’re facing.

Now, steer into it, and with a professional design agency by your side, you’ll be able to overcome it.

Project specific information

Project specific information can be tricky to outline in your design brief.

This happens because more often than not, it’s beneficial to have your design agency make recommendations, rather than adding restrictions from the outset.

On top of that, you might not actually know what it is that you need.

However, there are always some things to consider.

Let’s look at website redesign project as an example:

• What is your current website built with (e.g WordPress)? Are you happy with it?
• Do you use tools to measure statistics and conversions? Can you share these?
• Are there any key pages that drive traffic and conversions?
• Is there a brand guideline that would help with redesigning the site?
• Where is the website hosted? Will it stay there?

Your project specification doesn’t need to be super technical.

But if you have specific requirements, it’s best to get them listed out now.

Other things to consider in your design brief are:

• Are you integrating your new website with a CRM system?
• Do you have a newsletter, and if so, which software do you use to serve it?
• What does your digital marketing plan look like?

You’re going to your agency for their talent and recommendations. So don’t be completely closed off to changing things!

The more project specific information you can share about your project at this early stage in the process the better.

More about your business

At the start of your design brief, you’ve given an overview into your business and the sector you work in.

But now, you have a chance to share even more about your business.

• What is your brand strategy?
• What have you done to arrive at this point?
• Who makes up the business?
• What are you most proud of?
• Why did you get started?
• Who are your biggest clients?
• What else is there to know?

Give us the longer version of the elevator pitch.

Noting down the ins-and-outs might make your brief seem long and boring, but from an agency perspective, I can promise you that it’s not.

It’s good to know who you’re going into business with. And, the more your agency knows, the better they can help!

Examples of work you like

Showing your agency examples of work you like gives them an insight into what you’re trying achieve with your own branding.

For instance do you like dark and grunge branding? Or do you prefer a white, minimalistic colour palette?

By giving your agency this information they will be able to visually build a picture of your dream brand. Otherwise they could go totally off track which will delay the project further.

Therefore, make sure you include some examples of work that you like when creating your design brief.

This could could be in the form of links to other websites, screenshots, or a Pinterest board.

Competitor information

You need to decide are you trying to stand out, or fit in? Are you a true disruptor? Take a look at our post on analysing and auditing your competitors brands for help.

There’s not a right or wrong answer here. This should be assessed on a case by case basis.

If you’re working on a branding project, knowing about your competitors can help your design agency to get an understanding of what they’re all about, and how you fit into their landscape.

Knowing your competitors is great.

Helping your agency to know your competitors not only eases their workload, but allows discussions about them to take place at an earlier stage in the process.

This can then throw up some interesting points to think about and consider.

It also means they don’t stray too close to what your competitors are doing when creating your new brand identity or website design .

You shouldn’t be scared of your competitors. You should know and respect them.

They can help you feed ideas for your business, whether that be positive or negative. Competitors can also become partners and trusted allies, so don’t overlook that approach.

• Can you partner with them to offer a new service?
• Are there learnings you can take from their marketing?
• Do you want to be like them, or completely different?

By noting them down in your design brief, these are the sorts of discussions you can with your design agency, who can then help position you for success. Maybe there’s some gaps or opportunities that your competitors are taking advantage of that you’re not?

These are things which your chosen agency can tap into.

Project timescales

This question often helps design agencies to decide whether they can be involved with your project or not.

If you’re looking for a rapid turnaround time, and the agencies you reach out to have a lot of work on, they might decline the offer to work together.

And that’s fine.

“ASAP” is not an acceptable answer when talking about timescales either. There needs to be a reasonable level of understanding here, things don’t just happen overnight.

As a rough guide, here’s what I tell people at Canny:

Branding Project Timescales

Branding projects can take anywhere between 6 and 12 weeks. It really depends on their complexity.

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.

However, if you’re looking to completely rebrand your business , create new visual assets, brand guidelines, and roll it out into a large organisation, you’ll be looking towards the top end of that timescale.

Website Project Timescales

With website design projects, things do tend to take a little longer. 6 weeks as a minimum, up to 16 or even 24 weeks for large eCommerce projects.

Timescales should really be put in place by your design agency when you decide to move forward.

One thing I always ask our new clients is:

“Is there an event/product launch/something else we can work towards with the project?”

And that always immediately helps get some initial plans in place.

Try to avoid reaching out to design agencies at the last minute. The earlier you can bring them in on your plans the better!

Nobody likes rush jobs and it doesn’t lead to the most creative output. It’s pressure for pressure’s sake. Try and avoid them at all costs!

Project budget

We have a whole article about project budgets , and why it’s important to share your budget with your design agency.

Think about this: Design agencies get approached for work on a regular basis.

Amongst the requests for work, there’s often a lot of rubbish, some half-decent leads, and sometimes, a real diamond in the rough.

You want to be that diamond!

Now, telling an agency your project budget isn’t the only way to do this. But it’s another thing that you can do to build trust and transparency from the outset.

Nobody wants their time wasted.

Imagine that you have a 1 hour call with a design agency. And then you send the brief. With no budget information.

Your design agency reads through it, and comes back with a proposal.

It’s 5 times over what you thought you’d be paying. You’ve lost an hour of your time, the agency has also lost a significant chunk of time by writing out the proposal.

By being clear with your budget early on, you can make sure everyone is on the same page right from the get go. And, that’s the fairest way of doing business.

Now, you don’t need to list the budget to the penny. But just giving some indication of what you’re working with goes a long way!

If you’re really unsure on how much certain things cost, we have some great posts about pricing that are listed out below.

• How Much Does Logo Design Cost?
• How Much Does Branding Cost?
• How Much Does a Website Cost?

Keep in mind that we’re a growing design agency based in the North East of England. If you’re in London, or New York City, the investment you’re going to be making is going to a lot more.

But don’t let that dissuade you. Good work costs good money. But, it also gets you real results!

Project deliverables

You need to consider the different elements that you require to complete your design project.

For example, you need to consider:

• What you expect to receive at the end of the project?
• What file formats should work be supplied in?
• What sizes and resolutions are needed?

This ensures that you are equipped with all of the right assets at the end of the project. You don’t want to be left resizing things because you haven’t given your agency the specifics.

There’s nothing more frustrating than “design by committee.” However, it does happen, and it can be managed.

But there always needs to be a lead point of contact in every design project.

One voice of reason that can be used to add balance to the discussions, and go between both the agency and the company.

This person should know the project inside and out. From goals and objectives through to audience personas and competitor information.

Clearly listing out the contact details of the project contact, and the best time and way to get hold of them, will make things run a lot smoother.

The design agency should also do their part here and once the project kicks off, they’ll assign a member of staff (usually an Account Manager) to handle their side of the communication.

How your design project will be awarded

If you’re considering working with a number of agencies, or firing out your design brief to several choices, then you need to make sure they know how the project will be awarded.

For the record:

We don’t believe in distributing your brief to a huge number of agencies. It’s not respectful of their time.

That said, we appreciate you’ll want to collect several proposals and opinions. 3 to 5 agencies is a fair number to approach.

Not sure how to choose an agency to work with?

• Check out this post about choosing a graphic design agency
• And this post about finding the best web designers near you

Now, how will your project be awarded?

Typically, there are several elements at play:

• Cost/Value for Money
• Quality of Work
• Previous Experience
• Alignment to the Design Brief
• Suitability of the Agency

There are any number of factors you could use to judge the responses.

It’s normal to write into your design brief, the percentage and weighting of each of the awarding criteria.

This helps to show your design agency what’s most important in your decision making process and allows them to tailor their responses accordingly.

Required response

The required response section of a design brief is pretty straightforward to write.

You need to let your agency know what you’re expecting back, by when, and how to submit it.

It’s simply a case of listing out what you expect to receive back.

Perhaps this is as simple as:

• A written response to the brief
• Examples of relevant work
• Testimonials from happy clients

Tell the agency how to submit their proposal, what to include, by when, and you’re off to the races.

Review Your Design Brief

We’ve talked about what a design brief is, why you need one, and what should be included.

But before you use your design brief to start reaching out to agencies you need to review it and gather feedback.

This helps ensure you’ve included all of the necessary points and gives you a change to make amends if needed.

As part of the review and feedback round, follow the below points:

Share the design brief with the client or stakeholders

• Distribute the design brief to all relevant parties involved in the project
• Ensure that the design brief reaches the key decision-makers and individuals who can provide valuable insights and feedback

Seek feedback and address any clarifications or revisions needed

• Encourage stakeholders to review the design brief thoroughly
• Request specific feedback regarding the clarity, completeness, and alignment with project requirements
• Address any questions or concerns raised by stakeholders promptly and provide necessary clarifications

Make necessary adjustments based on the feedback received

• Analyse the feedback received from stakeholders and evaluate its relevance and impact on the design brief
• Identify areas that require clarification, additional information, or revisions to ensure the design brief accurately reflects the project’s goals and requirements
• Incorporate the feedback into the design brief, making necessary adjustments to improve its overall quality and effectiveness

Design Brief Tips

You want your design brief to be as understandable as possible so that your chosen design agency can take it and get to work.

They should know exactly what you’re trying to achieve and the desired outcome.

Make sure you follow the tips below when crafting your own design brief.

Use clear and concise language

You should avoid using technical jargon and industry-specific terms that might confuse your chosen agency as they need to understand your business to be able to help.

Make sure you use clear and straightforward language to convey your ideas effectively as this will help the whole project run smoother.

Keep sentences and paragraphs concise to maintain clarity and this will also make your design brief easier to read.

Be specific and provide detailed information

You must clearly articulate the project requirements, objectives, and goals so that your chosen agency know what the desired outcome is.

Provide specific details about what you want to achieve and the deliverables you’re expecting from the project.

Include any relevant specifications too, such as dimensions, colour preferences, or technical requirements.

Include visual references or examples where possible

If possible, don’t just include lots of text in your design brief.

Whilst getting all of the key information included is key, you want to make it as easy as possible for your chosen agency to understand your requirements.

As well as being detailed, another way of making your design brief more understandable is by incorporating visual aids such as sketches, diagrams, or mood boards.

These can be used to help illustrate your desired look and feel so that your chosen agency can better understand your vision.

Ensure consistency throughout your design brief

Maintain a consistent tone and style throughout your design brief and make sure that all sections of the brief align with each other.

You want to convey a coherent message throughout so everything needs to support a unified direction for the project.

Use consistent formatting, such as headings, bullet points, or numbered lists, to make the brief easier to read.

Proofread it

Before sending your design brief to your chosen agency you need to read back through it.

This helps you make sure that you’ve not made any obvious mistakes or typos, and ultimately that everything you’ve written makes sense!

If you can’t understand what you’re trying to say then an external design agency definitely won’t be able to.

The “Do Nots” of Writing a Design Brief

Now that we’ve covered the ins-and-outs of writing a good design brief, let’s look at three things that you should avoid with your design brief.

Do not send your design brief to everyone

There are thousands of design agencies out there, but you don’t need to send you brief to every single one of them.

Find four or five that you like the look of, research them thoroughly, and if they look like a good fit for your project, send the brief to them.

One large email with twenty agencies copied in just isn’t acceptable. It’s not respectful of their time or their work, and you’re going to end up looking a bit silly when nobody replies.

Also keep in mind that if you send your design brief out to twenty agencies, you’re likely going to have to field twenty phone calls.

Be picky! It’ll help everyone in the long run.

Do not skip over the budget section

Design budgets are important. They help to align expectations between your agency and your business.

You don’t need to list every single detail out, but having a rough idea of what you could possibly invest, is better than no idea at all.

Also, don’t be closed off to being at least a little flexible. There might be much better solutions available at a higher investment level.

Do not forget to include a timescale around your decision

Nothing is worse for a design agency owner, than projects stuck in the “possibly / possibly not” pile indefinitely.

In a design agency, you’re trading time for money, so being able to plan your workload is key.

Make sure you’re clear around when decisions will be made, and stick to the timescale you set.

Design Brief Example

When it comes to writing your design brief it can be very tricky.

After all, what level of information do you include and how do you effectively communicate your wants and needs?

Take a look at the below example as we walk you through the process step-by-step.

This is simply an example to show you what kind of information your design agency will require. When it comes to measures of success for instance, simply stating ‘we want more traffic’ is not good enough. How much do you want to increase your website and by when?

This level of detail will save time later on.

Reach Out to Design Agencies

Now that you’ve learned how to write a design brief, and created your shortlist of design agencies, it’s time to start reaching out.

If you’re still not sure on how to find a design agency, you should contact us to discuss your design project.

Now, it’s time to get the whole process started.

Your design brief is a tool to be used when sourcing an agency and building out your design project.

Quite often, it’ll be added to or modified. And that’s exactly how it should be used. It’s a starting point.

Naturally you’ll get ideas as you go, things will change, goals will become easily reachable or be out of reach. Your focus might change altogether and things you thought would work at first, might not work in practice. It’s a creative process and your design brief will grow with you.

Your design brief should be used to reach out to agencies, and referred back to at key milestones within the project. Regardless of what sector you work in, whether you’re building a healthcare brand or you work in tech and IT, this important document will drive your project in the right direction.

Other Design Brief Templates in the Series

As well as The Design Brief Template we’ve also created a whole range of other brief templates that you download and use completely free.

So, no matter what sort of creative project you need to write a brief for, we’ve got you covered. Check them out below:

The Branding Brief Template

The Branding Brief Template will help you get the brief for your company branding project right.

From straight up branding projects for small businesses, to the full scale branding of larger companies – The Branding Brief Template has all types of branding projects covered.

The Rebranding Brief Template

The Rebranding Brief Template will help you get the brief for your rebranding project right.

From smaller rebranding projects, to full scale enterprise rebranding – The Rebranding Brief Template has all sizes of rebranding projects covered.

The Web Design Brief Template

The Web Design Brief Template will help you get the brief for your web design project right.

Whether you’re creating a new website for your business, or redesigning your existing website – then The Web Design Brief Template is going to be useful.

The Video Brief Template

The Video Brief Template will help you get the foundation for your video project right.

Whether you’re embarking on a corporate video, documentary, explainer, or any other type of video project – then The Video Brief Template is sure to help you out.

The Marketing Brief Template

The Marketing Brief will help you get the brief for any of your marketing projects right.

Whether you’re looking to grow traffic to your website, or increase conversions from existing traffic – then The Marketing Brief Template is here to help.

The Content Brief Template

The Content Brief Template will help you to generate interest in your brand/business in no time!

This brief is perfect for marketers out there looking to work with an agency to strategise, create, and market their content. With content marketing becoming a must in business – The Content Brief Template is designed to help you progress your own content marketing strategy.

The Packaging Brief Template

The Packaging Design Brief template will help you communicate the needs of your packaging project.

From cartons and bottles to boxes and envelopes, knowing what to include in your brief can be confusing – that’s why we designed The Packaging Design Brief template, to help you make sense of the packaging madness.

The RFP / RFQ Template

The RFP / RFQ Template will help you to create an easy to understand document that communicates the needs of your project.

Whether you’re embarking on a branding, web design, brochure design, packaging design, or any other type of design project – then The RFP / RFQ Template can help.

The Advertising Brief Template

The Advertising Brief tells your chosen agency everything about your advertisement or campaign.

From understanding your project goals, to detailing examples of work you like – The Advertising Brief Template is sure to help you out.

Founder and Director

Don't hesitate to get in touch. We'd love to help.

Hey I'm Tony, Founder and Director of Canny Creative. I eat, sleep and bleed Canny to be honest. I'm an absolute workaholic (and yes, I know that's not a good thing!).

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Joint deconstruction of a design brief

A design brief is a fundamental component of Visual Communication Design. The brief is a specific text type having particular features and structures.

A design brief provides clear boundaries around what a project involves. Details about the client and target audience inform the communication needs and how the designer addresses the brief's requirements, including the methods, media and materials used. The designer also must take into consideration constraints on the design process and presentation formats.

A brief usually includes the components in the table below.

Note that the presentation step may be repeated more than once as designers focus on different components of the design brief.

The following strategy enables students to understand the specific features and structures of a design brief, including language use, register (or level of formality) and layout. The strategy involves:

• initial teacher modelling and guided joint deconstruction
• followed by pair work
• small group work
• brief oral presentations during which students summarise their responses.

A glossary of technical vocabulary encountered during the strategy is created by students.

• The teacher presents students with the design brief template (as above).
• The teacher and students discuss the components of the design brief template.
• The teacher distributes or displays a sample design brief .
• Jointly, the teacher and students deconstruct the sample brief with teacher prompting students, for example:
• Why are the components of the brief sequenced in this way?
• How would you describe the register (or level of formality) of the language in the brief? What words make you say this? Why is this register used?
• Discuss the use of tense in the brief. Does tense vary across the brief components?
• Identify the use of modal verbs in the brief. Modality refers to ability, possibility, certainty, permission, or obligation, for example, 'I can;' 'It will;' 'She must.' Discuss the use of these verbs in the context of the brief component.
• The teacher asks students to form pairs and complete the following:
• With your partner, highlight or list VCD-specific words or phrases.
• With your partner, highlight or list any unfamiliar or technical words or phrases, for example, 'corporate identity;' 'demographics of the envisioned audience.' 
• Pair responses are shared with the whole class, discussed, defined, and recorded on the whiteboard and in students' notes.
• Students form groups of four. Each group is given an unseen design brief. These may need to be written by the teacher.
• The teacher asks groups to discuss the brief's contents, including points in step 5 and to note their responses (or jointly annotate the brief).
• Each group presents responses to the class including the following:
• A brief explanation of the client, communication needs, target audience in their sample brief
• VCD-specific terminology used in the brief
• Other unfamiliar or technical words or phrases used in the brief, definitions of these and explanation of where and why they are used in the brief.
• From the responses collected, students create glossaries of novel words/phrases that may be used in their design briefs.

Curriculum links for the above example: VCAVCDP003 , VCAVCDR004 , VCAVCDE006 , VCAVCDE007 , VCAVCDP009 , VCAVCDR011 .

Our website uses a free tool to translate into other languages. This tool is a guide and may not be accurate. For more, see: Information in your language

Design Brief

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A design brief is an over view of what you have chosen to do for your project. It should also include points that you will need to do as part of the project. This is intend to be written at the start of your project as an explanation of what you have chosen to do. *Note- this is not a description of the product you want to make!

Points to consider including are-

What the problem is you are trying to solve

Who the final product will be for and why

State that you will need to design a solution

Also state that you will need to make a prototype

State other points you will need to consider i.e. safety/if the final product will be influenced by cost/ if there are specific functions it must include.

Teacher Tutorial:

Watch the following tutorial where you will be talked through what you need to do.

Additional Resources:

Below you will find additional resources to support you with completing this task. These include additional tutorials and guidance materials you will have watched during the teacher tutorial.