How to write a creative brief
Writing a good creative brief.
A good creative brief can align everyone on the project. The clearer it is, the more chance you have of getting the project finished. Concise is valuable, but not concise to the point of ambiguity.
A creative brief is essential if you are spending time and money on design work, website or integrated system. This is true if you’re using internal or external resources - For simplicity I’ll call this ‘your team’. When written correctly, a creative brief will help communicate your values, vision, and the results you’re looking for.
The purpose of a creative brief?
A creative brief is a short structured summary of your company’s background and the strategic and tactical objectives of your project. Creative briefs are useful tools for many types of project: Websites; brochures; presentations; product design; systems; every aspect of creative work is helped with a well written brief.
Strategy
The creative brief will help your team understand the project strategy, the ‘audience’ you’re trying to target, what outputs you’re looking for.
The brief will make clear your objectives, and the tone of voice for your message. Clarity here is vital to make sure your team are clear about the approach you are looking to achieve.
Context and Constraints
Context is vitally important. A creative brief will help your team understand the competition and the market.
Constraining factors such as timescale, and budget should also be included
Creative Brief Elements
- Introduction
About your company. Ethos, history, change and mission
An explanation of the project, and how this element of design work fits into the strategy of the project.
Audience information, including the markets you’re targeting and any pertinent demographic or psychographic profiles
Your “big idea,” or the objective you’re hoping to achieve with the creative deliverables
Your brand and the tone required
Your competition, and any challenges or obstacles you foresee
Logistical details including your budget and the time frame in which you need the project completed
1. Introduction
You may feel constrained, but by limiting the word count, you will distill your thinking, this will make your messages clearer and understood. Our clients find the process of shortening the text helpful in refining the project in their own mind. Make your introduction 50 words or less.
The previous paragraph is 48 words.
Tip: Try to limit your creative brief to a single page — or two pages maximum — It’s a critical working document and it needs to be read and understood. Brevity is key to this.
2. Your company’s background
Of more use to external team members, but still useful to clarify the important aspects of the companies activities and values as they pertain to the project.
Tip: Avoid Jargon and flashy ‘marketing’ or technical language. Be clear and be as simple as you can. The objective is to convey information and not to make yourself look clever.
3. Your project
Couched in terms of ‘outputs’ or ‘deliverables’, this section will specify what it is you want to achieve and what the elements will be. For example: revised look and feel of your website, a brand new website, a page to promote an event or a new logo; a new functional part of your website and the list goes on…
Tip: Include the wider marketing context and help the creative team to understand the aesthetic and conceptual landscape - other elements of the wider project that will sit alongside this specific work.
4. The ‘Audience’
The clearer you are about who you are talking to, what identifies the groups and what motivates them will help the team to target the correct messages in the right way. Understanding the ‘drivers’ and motivation, makes it easier it is for creatives to ‘speak’ to the audience. This may be verbally, aesthetically or in terms of the user experience, and user interface (UX/UI)
Tip: Audience guidelines are invaluable. It can be helpful to use examples to help clarify the groups.
5. Your objective
The overview of what you want to achieve beyond the tangible asset. For example, Are you aiming to generate more sales from exisiting customers, or realign your messaging with another group of potential customers? This is important because it might free the creative to offer a solution in a new or unexpected way.
Tip: Including the mission or objectives without being excessively specific about the route can generate innovative approaches and new creative ways of getting what you need!
6. Your brand
This is where you need to impose constraints. for example typography and colours in your style guide, mandatory phases, exclusions, logo rules. Remember that colour is sensitive to context, you might have to consider the medium before being overly specific - perception of colour might dictate using technically different shades to achieve an identical perception.
Tip: Offer positive 'includes' and clear exclusions. Both are valuable. But try to leave room for the creative to give you what you need.
7. Your competition
This is important. You can include both positive and negative: Competitors who you admire and those where the aesthetic is aligned more closely with your objectives; As useful is the contrary - competitors whom you do not admire or whose design direction is not the direction that you think ’works’.
Trends and fashion are polite terms for copying. Design is the art of creatively copying! Few clients welcome avant guard unique approaches and almost all projects derive from something in existence.
Tip: Include URL’s or examples of specifics and any notes that clarify.
8. Technical/Project Constraints
- When do you need this for?
- How many times do you need to review along the way?
- What milestones would you like to ask for?
- Do you have a review process for the rest of the decision makers?
- Do you expect to iterate and revise the work?
- Who is testing and how long will this take?
- Is the budget for this complete process?
Technical constraints form a crucial part of how the project will be delivered and as a result can have a baring on the cost to your supplier or the demands of your team. Being clear at the outset will help prevent strained relationships or unexpected bills at the end of the project.
Tip: working together as a team you will learn how the process works, but working with a new agency or team members it’s helpful to get this clear before the commercial deal is done.
Conclusion
Your creative brief is a valuable tool that you can use to give your project maximum chance of success and minimise the risk of misalignment, or misunderstanding for everyone. It’s well worth writing carefully, reading slowly, and halving the words when you think you’ve finished.
At Isoblue we specialise in helping clients write great creative brief. It’s an informal step in our quotation process and we call it ‘eliciting the brief’. Using our fact find method we can help elicit your creative brief to maximise the value of our projects. Read about Fact Find here