Put your brief on one page

The best brief I’ve ever had fitted on one side of A4. The worst ran to 23 pages, with a mood board for every page of a website that didn’t exist yet, and it still didn’t say who the customers were.

A brief isn’t paperwork. It’s the first thing a client and a designer make together, and every later decision leans on it. If you run a small business and you’re about to write to a designer, this is what I’d put on that page, and what I’d leave off.

Start with what goes wrong today

Most briefs open with how the business wants to look. The useful ones open with a problem someone can see.

When the walking trust behind Cais first wrote to me, the brief didn’t say the old leaflets looked dated, though they did. It said walkers got lost at junctions. That one sentence told me the maps had to show less rather than more, and almost every choice after it followed from there.

Our brief was a single page, and most of it was a list of the junctions where people turn back.

Coordinator, the walking trust behind Cais

If you can’t name the problem yet, describe a moment instead: a customer squinting at your shelf, a question you answer on the phone every week, an order that went wrong. A designer can work with a moment. An adjective gives them nothing to hold.

Five things the page needs

Everything else can wait for the first call. These five can’t, because I can’t plan or price the work without them.

Who it’s for

Describe the person who buys from you on an ordinary Tuesday, not the customer you wish you had. Say where they are when they first meet your box or your site: in a queue with a phone, at a shop door, in a tent at the end of a long day.

What has to be made

List the actual objects: a logo, three box sizes, a website with a menu page. A list of things is far easier to plan than a single word like rebrand, which can mean a new sticker or a new shop.

A word of warning

If the list keeps growing while you write it, stop and mark the three things you need first. The rest can be a second project, and it usually costs less once the first is done.

What it can cost

Give a number, even a rough range. Without one I’m guessing at the size of the project, and you’re waiting a week for a quote that might be twice what you can spend.

When it has to be ready

Name the date and what happens on it: a shop opening, a trade fair, a slot at the printer. A date with a reason gets planned around. A date without one tends to move.

Who decides

Tell me who signs off. If three partners each need to agree, that changes the schedule more than any design decision will.

What to leave off

Some things feel helpful in a brief and get in the way once the work starts. I’d rather you left these out:

• Finished designs. Show what you like, but don’t draw the answer.

• Every competitor. Two or three you admire are plenty.

• Adjectives. Modern, clean and fresh describe nearly every brief.

• The whole history. Three lines on how you started will do.

Pictures are welcome, as long as you say what you like in each one. “The colour of this box” is useful. A folder of 80 screenshots with no notes is a weekend of guessing.

A page you can copy

Here is how a one-page brief usually divides. The proportions matter more than the headings, so borrow them and use your own words.

Write the page, send it a few days before we speak, and then leave it alone. The call is where it improves: I’ll ask about the parts that surprised me, and you’ll hear your problem read back in someone else’s words, which is often when the real brief appears.

I answer every email within two working days, and I’m booking projects from March. If you have a page, or half of one, send it to me.