The Design Brief | Dan Taylor

Question: What is the most successful way for you (a client) to communicate to a design firm exactly what you are trying to achieve, how you will achieve it and how you will know when it has been achieved?

Answer: The Design Brief.

A successful outcome to a design project means different things to different people. In an effort to align the expectations of the client with the deliverables of the designer, I strongly recommend that clients prepare a design brief, or commission me to create a Design Brief for them.

The Design Brief

The Design Brief is a document created by the client in order to set out clearly their objectives, how they need to work, what they need to get from the process and when they need to get it. The design brief can help answer any questions the designer might need to ask the client, both before and during the process. But it may also help the client create for the designer a sharp (and easily consultable) definition of why the client is entering this process and what they would like to achieve by the end.

It is not uncommon for the designer to ask a number of questions that are aimed at eliciting a precise brief from their clients. These documents will have been constructed with reference to the design firm's own design process. Remember the client must ensure that the brief they finally submit to the designer communicates their objectives precisely. Having said that, some in the design world believe that "keep it brief" is a reasonable rule of thumb in a brief.

The design brief the client eventually hands over should be one that gives the client a sense of security, a sense that they have expressed as clearly as possible what they are looking for from the design firm. Achieving this usually means that there are some areas that simply must be covered.

The Client needs to explain who they are

The client might feel that their company is a household name, but designers still need to hear the clients version of their story. There is a need for the client to provide the designer with enough information about their organization to understand where they have come from, and where they are trying to go. Extend this background information to a synopsis of the market in which the client operates, explain who their competitors are and how their company and its products or services differs from the competition. Explain their organization's brand personality.

State the objectives

Explain the need for this particular project. If the design brief offers a clear statement of the clients objectives, and the priorities they place on them, it will be doing a large part of the job it needs to do.

Explain the vision of the project

From there, the client adds details which will help to express more clearly what their company is about and how this project will affect the way their business will be perceived by the market. Part of this process should involve an effort to define the work's audiences.

The Design itself

Outline the materials, medium or media in which the design will be realized, the design cycles, the distribution, the design parameters in general, and the client should say as much as they can about how and where they see the design being used. The client will also need to detail any constraints on the project or its delivery.

Design Criteria

The client's design brief will need to tell the design firm some things that the clients would like their design to say about them, adding if possible some examples of work that they think scores highly in this direction. If the client is truly determined to have their company seen, for example, as one that is facing with zest the challenges of the 21st Century, the client will need the design to do the same.

Outline your success criteria

The client must clearly define how they will judge the success of the project.

Sample Design Brief Outlines

The following are two sets of sample headings that are often used for writing Design Briefs. Choose and modify the one that best suits the needs of the project.

Sample 1

Corporate Profile
Market Position
Current Situation
Business Objectives
Target Audience
Corporate/Brand Personality
Budget
Schedule & Deadline
Design Medium
Technical & Practical Constraints

Sample 2

Project Objectives
Target Audience (Market)
Product Features
Customer (User) Benefits
Support for Benefit Claims
Competition
Competition Strengths and Weakness
Creative Considerations
Distribution Considerations
Single Most Important Point

Administration

The design brief should also define budgets and set out required timeframes, alongside which it might cover the internal process which will be involved in approving work at stages along the timeline, as well as defining the contact within the client organization for this. How exactly these aspects will be treated in the design brief will depend largely on the type of work the client is commissioning.

The goal of the design brief is to outline the client's needs and expectations, as well as describe the markets that must be targeted with precision. It has to state clearly the challenges to be met, but will still expect the designer to provide a creative solution. The design brief is not intended to tell the designers how to design, simply to give them the best possibly chance of delivering the work the client needs.

Please contact me if you would like to discuss a design brief.