Trying to produce a good design solution, from a bad brief is like trying to choose a present for someone you have never met before. They end up with a generic box of chocolates, then it turns out they hate chocolate.
There are 3 types of bad brief:
- The brief that is so tight, that you wonder why the client didn’t do it themselves
- The brief where however hard you try the client can’t or won’t give you any information beyond the size of the document. Then when you take the visuals in they say “that wasn’t really what I had in mind” this is more what I was thinking (Arggg! now comes the brief)
- The second hand brief (its like a game of Chinese Whispers). No, I take that back, sometimes a second hand brief can be good, it depends how good your client is at taking a brief. The problem arises when they are not and you are unable to find out any more information.
A client of mine who wasn’t used to taking design briefs asked me if I could create a set of questions for them that would help them collect the information I needed for a design project.
These are a few of things I suggested they ask
- Information about the company, what they do what they are trying to achieve with this project
- Project message/theme
- Are there any corporate guidelines?
- Who are their competitors
- “Look” and “feel required”such as contemporary/ traditional/brash/minimal/corporate/fun/examples of similar things they like
- Target audience
- Budget
- Technical Spec
The more information you have, the more likely you are to fulfil the clients requirements.
All the questions above are in my design brief sheet in the Design Resources Section of my blog. If anyone has any suggestions on anything I should add to it please let me know.
How do you go about getting a good design brief?
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12 Comments
I create it myself after interviewing the client. Then I get the client to sign it. If they haven’t thought much about it before, they tend to get serious when they have to sign something. I do this in addition to the contract.
Hi Kerry
Thanks for leaving a comment. Your idea of getting a client to sign the brief is a good one, especially for new clients.
yeh, getting the client sign on work is a good idea.
My previous client was was the one who gave me only the size, rest she says its not exactly what is in my mind. I got so annoid coz I asked her hell lot of questions and she ends up says just do a design with the theme given, and size.
Hey!
Agree with Kerry, I don’t start transforming the design into html until the client is satisfied and has signed.
Good post!
Regards
The opening metaphor is pretty descriptive.
I once tried to draw up scales with opposites on each end, and got the client to tick whereever he though was fitting.
Elegant ———————- Grungy
Modern ———————– Traditional
Dark ————————- Light
Tight ———————— Loose
Personal ——————— Formal
and so on, depending on the company.
This helps a lot because it makes it easy for the client to show clearly what they are thinking (unless they ticks in the middle of every line
), and it quickly gives you some insight to what they have in mind. You should as a rule follow the extremes; the ticks that are the furthest from the centre.
I don’t have too much experience, though. These are only my two cents.
Santosh
I think we have all been there
Frucomerci
Thanks for your comment, the idea of signing the brief is a good one.
Asgeir
I like your idea of the tick box scales, that makes it easier for a client to make a decision. That’s as long as they don’t put them all in the middle ;0
Hey. Nice post. I have to do a brief sample for the clients of my company and this really help.thanks a lot.
Over the years, I’ve tried several pre-written formulaic brief sheets with clients. Eventually I discovered that the requirements of most clients can’t be sufficiently covered in such a way.
When I discuss a new project with a client, I do ask a set of standard questions to gain general information. But I’ve found that chatting with the client, and asking them as many questions as possible about their business or service, and making lots of notes is the only way to get a clear and successful brief.
For larger, more complex, design briefs, I do send the client a written copy of my understanding of their requirements, and ask them to read through and make any changes.
Creatively, the biggest problem during briefing, is when clients come to me with the solution rather than the problem.
Rather than coming to me and saying ‘ Dave I have this product/service and I want to raise public awareness to increase sales and profit’, they say ‘this is what I’m selling, I want a full colour leaflet, 6pp 1/3 A4, with my logo here, this picture here, this text here, and I need 20,000 of them’.
Usually this is because Joe Bloggs down the road produced a leaflet and it worked really well for him.
From my earliest meetings with new clients, I ask them to think in terms of the problem, not the solution – the problem is their business, the solution is mine.
Often this is a huge relief to clients who feel they need to approach designers with ‘all the answers’ ready to hand over.
This system works very well for me, I hope others find it useful too!?
I agree that getting a decent brief from your client is crucial and I can usually obtain this over a cup of coffee and a fondant fancy with them (followed up by a signed summary). However if they are unable to meet and discuss their project I find it difficult to get them to answer any questions, even if it’s just three or four. I sometimes have to send another gentle email mentioning that a good brief can save them time and money allowing me to have more insight into their objectives – this usually does the trick. I have come to the conclusion that people who are reluctant to answer questions about their project are possibly wasting my time.
This is one of my biggest gripes with clients. The don’t know what they like but when you give them something, that takes hours to do and all of a sudden they know exactly what they like. As designers we visualise and that is why we do what we do and our clients don’t
Graphic brief is nice though we must be choosy on words we use in order to be effective.
I don’t know how many times I have had to deal with customers who don not knot what they want but sure know what they do not like once you have presented it to them. Whats worse on rare occasions they they think you are a poor designer!
I really do like the idea of getting the client to sign the design brief notes I make.
Trevor.
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