Design Council - How to write a brief

Make sure you agree a brief at the start of the project

A brief is a set of instructions that set out what you want your designers to do, along with the objectives and parameters of the design project. 

Write it down and make a copy for you, your designers and anyone else involved

It should make clear what falls within – and outside – the scope of the work. This will help everybody refer back to where they started and make sure that the design work is developing according to your objectives. It will also help you determine how successful the project has been when you reach the end.

A well-considered brief can act as a general grounding document if the project appears to be heading in the wrong direction, so it’s well worth putting something in writing.

Change the brief as the project progresses if necessary, but do so by agreement and make a new document

It can be adapted as you go along, as long as it’s done in collaboration with everyone involved and the new version is also written down.

"We had a brief written down after a number of conversations and emails with (design consultancy) Thompson, so it was a collaborative process to create it. We had to pin down the core of what it was we wanted and Thompson understood the problem and essence of what we needed within a few minutes of coming to meet us." Kate Jones, Co-founder, Gillies Jones Glass

Ideally, the brief will contain all the information about your business, its objectives and the rationale behind the design project that you talked about when first meeting your designer. 

The brief should also contain your investment expectations and timeframes.


Here’s a checklist of some of the things you might want to include in your brief:

• Business background
  customers; strengths and weaknesses; strategic objectives; competitors and existing marketing
• Project objectives
  what you want to achieve and how the design will be used
• Constraints on the design
  to fit with any existing designs or parts; specific technical or legal requirements; manufacturing processes needed; what is inside and outside the project’s scope and any environmental issues
• Creative direction
  style; materials; tone; mood; communication and usability
• Project management
  budgets; schedule and deadlines; details of the team or person liaising with the designers and managing the project and how success will be measured at the end
• Intellectual property (IP)
  establishing who owns IP rights to the designs being produced – for more information, read our article on Intellectual Property by Iain Stansfield.

Once details like mood, tone, style e.t.c. are being discussed and written down you may start to refer to the document as a design specification. This is if the brief is for a piece of visual design.

It is extremely helpful if senior management can see the amount of work that goes into a well-run design project so they understand the value of their business’ investment and where it is being spent.


It’s also helpful to involve other people who will be directly affected by the new designs, maybe gathering feedback along the way. This includes employees, but may also extend to external partners, such as distributors or manufacturers. As with any changes affecting a business, it’s important to get a sense of involvement and ‘buy-in’ from the people involved, especially for branding projects.


Communicate effectively with your designer.

Designers will need to work with you creatively to achieve the best results.
This is a collaborative process aiming to achieve what you have set out in your original design brief. 

It is an iterative process – Ideas will be developed, tested, refined, then passed around for feedback and discussion a number of times. Ideas may also be dropped as part of this process.

Stages:

• Concepts – initial options and ideas
• Design development – refining a chosen concept
• Evaluation – testing and reviewing the design
• Implementation – production to launch

"It was quite a scary process and I found it hard to let go of control; it was well outside my comfort zone, but this is a really good thing and it was good process to go through. You need to give up some control to get some objectivity and see how others perceive you and your business. It’s a very valuable thing to do. We went through lots of iterations of the identity, so we could pick out elements we liked and didn’t like. The whole process took about a year. Kate Jones, Co-founder, Gillies Jones Glass"

Communication with Designers

Designers may use a set of terms that you would never normally come across. Such technical terms and shorthand phrases have been adopted to help them work more effectively, but you shouldn’t be expected to understand immediately.

The more literate you are, the better the work you’ll get out of it. Even if you’re only pointing at a painting or something in a book. The more you know about design the more confident you can be in speaking to your designer and pushing them. Simon Meek, Director, Okayso