Creative Briefs, Briefly
Photo by Patrick Kool on Unsplash
You’ve got your first project, woohoo! Next you’ll want your client (or colleague) to fill out a creative brief. Keep reading to learn more and download a free template at the end.
What is a creative brief?
A creative brief is a document that houses all the relevant information needed for a creative project. You can use a creative brief for something as simple as a social media post, or as complicated as a new website or even a total company re-brand. Generally, briefs for design projects include an overview of the project, its objective, main message, audience, distribution methods, final deliverables, requirements, and key performance indicators (KPIs) that will measure its success.
Why do you need one?
The brief is an important document that acts like a contract between you and your client or stakeholder(s) that can be referred to as the project progresses. It helps you stay focused on the task at hand while protecting the project against scope creep. Even after years working on in-house design teams, I still require briefs for even the simplest tasks. Not only does it directly contribute to better quality and clarity of the work, it also helps the client or stakeholder feel more empowered and involved in the creative process. Win-win!
What should I include in a creative brief?
As I mentioned above, creative briefs generally include:
Project overview: This is the 1-2 sentence answer to the question, “What is this?” and “Why are we doing this?”
Objective: A statement that defines the primary goal of the project: what are we trying to accomplish?
Key message: What is the one thing we want the audience to take away? Why does it matter to them? What is the benefit? Note: there should really only be one key message.
Tone: How should your message come across? This is especially important in the absence of established brand guidelines.
Audience: A description of the human beings that will see the work. This often includes high-level demographic information (age, gender, household income [HHI], and location), characteristics, desires, and frustrations. If your organization has personas, they can be included here.
Distribution: Where will the deliverables (below) be used? Depending on the size of the project, this can be just one channel (e.g. Instagram, a direct mailer) or, for larger campaigns, many different platforms and formats.
Content: Where are the words coming from? Is there an offer? Who is responsible for obtaining the copy?
Deliverables: What are the actual things you will hand over when your work is completed? This is almost always a file or collection of files. If you’re working on a print project, make sure you know how your client or stakeholder is planning to handle production. I always offer to communicate directly with the print vendor to ensure proper file handoff and proofing.
Requirements: This is the nitty gritty section where due dates, milestones, legal requirements, and tech specs are listed. If you’re in-house and haven’t made a friend or two in the legal department, schedule a coffee ASAP.
Budget: This is usually covered by a proposal if you freelance, but sometimes internal teams don’t really think about this since you’re all on payroll. However, especially in smaller operations with constrained resources, it's helpful to know if you have some cash for things like stock photography, illustration, or external support.
Anything else?
Totally. A quick Google search for “creative briefs” will turn up a whole mess of options. While there’s no one-size-fits-all, what I’ve outlined above is a good place to start and should cover the major points of a creative project. Depending on the project, however, you may need to add additional sections, such as:
Key performance indicators: This is something that I started asking early on in my career because I don’t believe that creative work is somehow exempt from measurement. Intuition, creative skill, and taste are of course paramount (that’s why they hired you!) but being able to put some data behind your work will help more business-oriented thinkers understand and appreciate the value you bring to the table.
References: What examples out there the client would like to emulate? Why do they like it? What are your competitors doing?
Additional stakeholders: Especially for larger projects, the person who is filling out the brief may not be the only one who needs to sign off on your work. Make sure you know who else needs to be included.
I encourage you to revise your creative briefs as you discover and learn more from your clients or colleagues. Every client / company / organization / kickball team is uniquely different. Part of the value you bring is delivering a delightful experience on both sides of the process, all starting (oftentimes) with the creative brief.
Click here to view my creative brief template (Google doc format)
Did I miss anything? I’d love to hear what you ask in your creative briefs–leave a comment below!