Design is an effective tool that helps to bring your business vision to life. But successfully collaborating with a designer doesn’t just happen; it is the result of a well-crafted and watertight brief that clearly articulates your goals and expectations.
We want to empower you to effectively brief a designer by exploring the key elements of a design brief, which serves as a blueprint for the creative process.
By empowering your designer with the following elements, you will set yourself up for a seamless experience and distinctive designs.
- Company Overview & Target Audience (Who You Are)
A good first step is to provide your designer with a detailed summary of your business. By explaining your vision, mission, and offerings, you will help your designer to start aligning themselves with your brand.
- Target Audience (Who You’re Talking To)
By describing your target audience and ideal client to your designer, you aid them in creating your designs in a way that will resonate with the right people. Include as many details as possible, such as your target audience’s demographic and psychographic information, and their interests and values. The more information the better.
- Objectives (Why You’re Doing This)
To effectively outline the goals and objectives of the project you need to ask yourself “what is the purpose of these designs? By identifying what it is that you’re trying to achieve, you can point your designer in the right direction. Examples of objectives could be improving brand recognition or appealing to previously untapped markets.
- Key Messages (What You Want To Say)
Give careful thought to the key messages that you want the designs to convey. The messages should align with your brand identity. Sharing this information with your designer will help them to develop designs that evoke emotions and thoughts in the line with these messages.
- Deliverables (What You Need)
List the exact design deliverables that you expect to receive from your designer. These could include a new logo, colour palette, typography recommendations, website design, social media graphics, business cards, or product packaging.
- Design Preferences (What You Like)
Share inspirational examples that showcase your design preferences in terms of aesthetics, styles, and colours. These can include images from Pinterest, screenshots, or links to websites or social media handles belonging to other brands. You can also make use of adjectives to guide the designer. For example, you can request designs that are “elegant” or “playful” or “edgy.” You should also advise on any design directions that you would like to avoid.
- Timelines (When You Need It By)
Design work takes time. And provision needs to be made for drafts, revisions, and final delivery. It is best to discuss timelines as soon as possible so that you can manage expectations and set realistic deadlines.
- Budget (What You Want To Pay)
It is vital that you are transparent about your budget constraints at the beginning of the project. Designs vary greatly in scope and complexity, and by informing your designer of what you’re willing to pay will help them to customise a proposal for you and avoid misunderstandings in the future.
The more comprehensive your brief, the better equipped your designer will be when facing the task of bringing your vision to life. An effective design collaboration also requires open communication, and a willingness to let the professional – in this case, the designer – have the creative freedom required to provide you with unique solutions and outstanding results.