How To Brief A Designer

Most design revisions are not design problems. They are briefing problems arriving late.

The designer built what you asked for, you saw it, and only then did you work out what you wanted.

What a brief has to contain

The job the thing has to do. Not "a new logo". A mark that works at 16 pixels in a browser tab, on a work shirt, and on a vehicle. Those constraints change the design completely.

Who sees it. A deck for a procurement panel and a deck for a founder are different objects.

Where it appears. Sizes, formats, print or screen, and every place it has to live. This is where most briefs are thin and where most rework comes from.

What already exists. Fonts, colours, previous work, the things you are stuck with whether you like them or not.

What you have already ruled out. If the board hated blue last time, say so now. Designers cannot read your history.

The decision process. Who approves it, how many people have an opinion, and when they are available. A brief that does not say "my business partner has to sign off" produces a second round nobody planned for.

Show, do not describe

The single highest-leverage thing in any design brief is references.

Three to five examples of work you like, with a sentence each on what specifically you like about it. "This one, for the typography, not the colours." "This layout, but it is too corporate for us."

Words like clean, modern, premium and professional mean nothing on their own. Every client has used all four to describe completely different things.

Include what you dislike too, and why. Negative references save more time than positive ones.

Say the budget

Withholding the budget to "see what they come back with" wastes everyone's time.

A designer given a range designs to it. A designer given nothing either overspecifies and loses, or underspecifies and delivers less than you wanted.

Same with the deadline, and the real one rather than the padded one.

Giving feedback

Be specific about the problem, not the solution. "The headline does not feel confident enough" is useful. "Make it bigger" is you doing the design badly.

Consolidate. One feedback document with everyone's comments resolved into a single position. Three people sending conflicting notes separately is how projects die.

Separate the must-fix from the preference. A designer needs to know which is which.

Do not design by committee. Collect input from many, make the decision with one or two.

The round structure

Agree upfront how many rounds are included and what a round is.

Two rounds is standard for most work. A third round that is really the client changing direction is a new brief, and it should be priced as one. That is not a defensive position, it is what keeps the relationship honest, in the same way what a retainer should include keeps an ongoing one honest.

The part people skip

Say what success looks like.

"This page should make people book a call." "This deck should survive being forwarded without me presenting it." "This logo needs to look right next to our clients' logos, and they are all large and conservative."

A designer who knows what the work is for makes better decisions in the hundred small places you will never brief.