Recently, a business contact of ours called for urgent advice on how to help a startup that had hired a mid-level overseas-based designer and ended up with a fairly useless result.
So, what went wrong?
A quick trawl through the client-contractor communications, and we soon found the answer: a hastily scrawled creative brief from the client that provided zero guidance on their brand objectives, competitive difference or ideal market position.
This client is in the food business. Let’s say they make barbecue sauce (they don’t). So, how would you position a new sauce? It could be ethics – organic, fair trade or non-GMO. It could be flavour – spicy, Korean-style, garlicky, beer-based, smoky, or sweet. You could push provenance – the chef, region or family behind the brand. It could have any other point of difference.
Point being, it’s a damn crowded market out there, and your barbecue sauce better jump right off the shelves. It should let customers know immediately how it’s different from the 20 other options available.
A creative brief will set your team on the right foot, ensuring a standout brand or design that attracts business for all the right reasons. Incidentally, any good creative team will write a return brief if your instructions are too unclear as the client.
What to include in your brief
Here’s what a simple two or three-page creative brief to your designer should include, whether you’re commissioning a full rebrand or a series of brand materials:
- Strategy – reminder of your business purpose, mission, values, brand personality and market position, even if that provider has worked with you before
- Background – some context about the sector, emerging trends and how this product (or project) will fit into that picture
- Assets provided – a list of any preexisting assets that must be used, even if it’s just the product names and intended brand hierarchy
- Deliverables – list of what the project should deliver, such as logo (in mono/colour, stacked/horizontal or print/digital production formats), supporting fonts, palette and any graphics
- Reference – link to some brands that you do and don’t like, along with a few words explaining why you’ve chosen these.
To find out more about what we consider essential to capture in a brand strategy, read our related article on the strategic foundations of a brand.
Your creative brief might also include some essential housekeeping, such as project milestones, approvals, agreed fees and so on. You may even add a wish-list of materials you want to create once the brand is complete, to help the creative team make better decisions.
To the uninitiated, writing a creative brief might feel like you’re stopping when all you want to do is start. But actually, it prevents you wasting a ton of time – and money – later.
Download our briefing template!
Sound too simple to be true? Nope: that’s literally how we do it here at The Offices. See for yourself, and grab our creative briefing template here from our Google Drive.
