The Lowdown on Design Briefs

Hi, everyone! I hope you’re staying well-hydrated and close to your air conditioners. This month I’m excited to talk to you about one of my favorite elements of the design process: The design brief.  

A design brief helps guide the design process. It is essential for making sure everyone is on the same page. Leaving things to chance leaves too much room for assumptions, confusion and potentially conflict.

Using a design brief to set goals at the beginning of a project helps me to stay focused on the outcomes we want a design to achieve. As we proceed, the client and I can revisit the design brief to help us make decisions. We also note anything else that’s on the client’s mind that will be helpful for me to know during the design process rather than waiting for it to pop up later and be disruptive.  

Let’s break down a design brief. What are the different elements?

• Analysis and Strategy — This an overview of the client’s mission as well as their intended brand personality and positioning.

• Goals — Simply put, what do we need to accomplish? What are we looking to achieve through the project? 

• Target Audience — Who are we trying to reach? Who are the organization’s potential clients, beneficiaries, donors and investors?

• Design Considerations — This is a space for the client to share any preferences or concerns around design, such as any colors they might have had trouble with or whether the name of the organization should be in all caps. 

• Project Timeline — Mapping out milestones by date breaks the project up into manageable pieces and helps us stay on track. 

Even the most seemingly simple projects can become complicated without an organized plan. All of these sections give me an in-depth understanding of the client’s needs, clarifies and aligns everyone’s expectations, and helps direct the process. 

So, what is the process of creating a design brief?

In order to create the design brief, I have a discovery discussion with the client and talk through my questions that inform the design brief. This is the first thing that happens once the contract has been signed for us to work together. I like to talk about the discovery questions on the phone rather than have them answered over email because it helps informs my ideas and creative brainstorming to hear the tone and personality of their voice as they talk about their work and also allows me to ask for clarifications if needed. We also get to talk in more natural, informal language than if someone sent me a written response so we avoid any jargon that can be confusing in terms of what a brand really stands for.

Following the discovery discussion, I map out the design brief according to the elements discussed above, circling back to the client if I have any questions or need clarification. Once the brief is finalized, I send a copy to the client so we can be on the same page, literally, as we work our way through the project. 

What are the benefits and challenges of a design brief?

Creating a design brief helps build trust with the client and establishes the process as collaborative. Including their thoughts and concerns in the brief makes it clear that they are being listened to and keeps their perspectives top of mind as I work.

If a project starts to lack focus, the design brief is an important resource to help us get back on track. For example, if we get in the weeds about the font for a logo design, I can revisit the design brief and see that we set a goal of creating a friendly-feeling logo. Then we can focus on finding a typeface to reflect that friendliness. The design brief helps give context and focus for some decisions that may otherwise be difficult or lead to confusion or conflict.

While the design brief is a great tool for establishing direct and helping us stay on track, it can be a challenge to make sure I get all the information I need up front. Some design preferences can be hard to articulate until you see them, so sometimes the client won’t realize at the beginning of the process that they feel a certain way about a particular design element until it’s on the page. That said, a design brief is helps me gather a good baseline for very major concerns and preferences that the client is definitely already aware of.

I do know designers who aren’t totally on board with the design brief because they might not be confident in their writing abilities (we’re visual creatives, after all!), but I strongly suggest beginning every project with a design brief. It’s so worth the effort. Creating a design brief upfront makes the rest of the process so much clearer, smoother and more enjoyable.

 Thanks for chatting with me about design briefs. I love getting to talk about the process of my work. If you’re am experienced designer who wants to add something, or an aspiring designer who wants to ask questions, tweet me at @heeeybattabatta. I’ll see y’all on the blog next month. Until then, be well!

P.S. For this month’s donation to change makers, I’m donating to Creative Reaction Lab, an organization that is building a youth-led, community-centered movement of a new type of Civic Leader: Redesigners for Justice. I’m learning a lot from them about how to keep making my design process justice- and equity-driven throughout.