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Is your brand ready to start a new social media campaign, create a new website or update your business cards? While you can DIY many design tasks on your own, sometimes you’re going to need a designer.
But before the work starts, you’ll want to put together a design brief to get the conversation going with your designer and walk them through exactly what you're looking for.
Simply put, a design brief is a document that organizes all aspects of a design project. Before a designer can get started on your project, there needs to be a good deal of positive communication between the two of you.
This begins when you interview potential designers and continues with a design brief.
Well, the designer and the client of course. Some projects also involve communication with the marketing team and the CEO. The only way to put together this information and end up with a perfect end product is through clear communication.
Essentially, the design brief is first put together by the client and then finished by the designer. When the client gives the designer the brief, it’s the designer’s responsibility to find out more about every aspect of the brief.
The way a design brief looks is not as important as what’s in it. The most important thing is that it’s well organized and easy to follow. Using a template helps a great deal to save time and effort for everyone.
Designing without a design brief is like trying to build legos in the dark. The information in the design brief is not only the foundation for a design project but also the best way to keep all stakeholders in the loop.
Both the designers and client need to make sure that the information is complete, with all the necessary details and nothing is forgotten.
Before we get started, did you know you can create any type of document with Visme? Not just design briefs.
Now let's get to work. So how do you go about creating a design brief that effectively communicates your end goal?
Before you even get started with the very first steps to creating your design brief, there are a few things to be solved first.
What exactly do you need to be designed? Visuals for a social media campaign or an ebook to use as a lead generation tool? Maybe you need a website redesign or an ecommerce addition to your existing site.
You need to be clear with what you need because not every designer is a unicorn.
If you need a website, an app, a set of email funnel visuals, business cards and more, you need a design team instead of one designer. Design briefs need to be kept to one project at a time. So be specific and stick to what needs to be done at the present time.
Once you know what exactly needs to be designed, it’s time to hire the right designer. Consider your budget and find a designer on LinkedIn, Freelancer or any other site where designers offer their services.
There is nothing more important for finalizing a design brief, than communication.
The client and the designer must set up a meeting, in person or via video call to discuss every aspect of the project. The questions asked and the notes taken are what complete the design brief provided by the client.
The designer takes all the information home and puts together the final design brief. Once that part is ready, everyone involved in the project needs to see it and sign off on it. This needs to happen before any work is done.
The design brief can be accompanied by a mood board created by the designer. Maybe even a low fidelity mockup. That way the client can get an idea of what the designer is considering to do.
Design briefs can be created in lots of different ways. From simple letterhead documents or spreadsheets to fully visual presentations or infographics.
Here at Visme, we have a set of visual design brief templates for both clients and designers. Our tool is easy enough for non-designers but powerful enough for a designer.
All this is well and good, but what does a design brief need to be effective?
Let’s take a look.
No design brief is complete without detailed information for the following topics:
As a client, when you prepare all this information for your designer, they should still ask questions. A good designer knows that a large part of any project is the backstory.
Be prepared to answer in-depth questions about all the information you provide.
This question and answer process will show you if a designer is invested in your project and if they have understood what your company values are.
Seeing how important a design brief is for any design project, it’s good to know some do’s and don’ts.
Follow these tips and your design project will be a success.
Here are some things to avoid when putting together a design brief and hiring a designer.
Putting together a design brief doesn’t need to be boring and drab. With one of Visme’s design brief templates, you can set things up the right way for your designer.
We have three different styles:
All you need to do is open one up in the editor and add your own information. Then share it with the designer using a link, download, or print it. Up to you!
Pro Tip: If printing, leave some empty spaces for notes.
Visme for Teams is a game-changer. Having these design brief templates available in your Visme team account can increase your productivity by a landslide.
Simply put together the design brief and share it with the in-house designer of your company. Or even the remote designers you have as part of the team.
After you send them the preliminary design brief and have your one-on-one meeting, they just need to finalize the brief and share it again with everyone involved.
When you have a Visme team account, you can have in-house or remote designers in charge of all the branded templates.
Then, other members of your team can use these templates to create any number of social media graphics, weekly and monthly reports, branded presentations, and blog graphics.
Once you put together a design brief for a project, the second and subsequent times will be much easier. You’ll learn from the designers you talk to what other information was needed and what was too much.
The Visme design brief template can be used again for another project by simply duplicating the project and changing the design. We suggest you duplicate the project so you don’t lose the previous one.
If you have a business account, then consider saving that first design brief as a template to use whenever you need it.
That’s a wrap up on our guide on how to write an effective design brief. We hope you feel more confident to put together a design brief for your next project. Let us know if you have any questions!
About the Author
Orana is a multi-faceted creative. She is a content writer, artist, and designer. She travels the world with her family and is currently in Istanbul. Find out more about her work at oranavelarde.com