Updated 12 March 2025
A design brief is a document completed by an individual or organization seeking creative services.
Essentially, it is a not-so-brief document outlining the project's objectives and expectations. It needs to cover an array of information about your organization and the message you wish to convey.
Without a solid, amazing brief to back your project, you won't get the results as quickly and efficiently as possible.
DesignCrowd's design order form captures the type of information listed here.
Need a custom design now? Start a custom design project now.
Here are 10 key questions and sections of information you need to include in your design brief:
Overview of Organization
-
What does your organization do? A business that deals in finance will have different design features than one that works in law. You should already know what your business does, so stick it in the brief.
-
Who is your target market? This should co-exist with what your organization does. Are you targeting males in their teenage/young adult years? Females in an older age bracket?
-
Who are your organization's main competitors? This gives the designers something to look at and offers an idea of what they have to compete with graphics-wise. The more info on this, the better: URL to their website, examples of their marketing material, etc.
-
How does your organization differ from your competitors? There has to be a point of difference. If not, you are just copying their idea. Tell the designer, and try to make that a design feature.
-
The history of your organization. What have you done before in the realm of graphic design? Knowing what you liked or disliked before will give the designer a better view of what you want as a client.
Goals
Knowing exactly what you want from your project will help the designer immensely. They can determine what you need if they know what you want done. These are the questions that you need to ask yourself:
-
Why are you seeking design services? Is it a rebrand or a new company? If it's a rebrand, why are you seeking to rebrand?
-
What message do you wish to communicate about your business? Why?
-
What are your goals? To increase sales, increase awareness, or perhaps even just to generate leads?
Budget and Deadline
-
Tell the designer how much money you are willing to spend. At DesignCrowd.com, we try to make working out a budget easy by creating packages around particular price points. If you're hiring a freelancer directly, be upfront about giving this detail to the designer. This will allow them to understand how much time they should spend on the project.
-
Set a realistic deadline for the project that you and the designer agree upon. Remember, the design process has many stages. Focusing on each phase—from conceptualization to feedback to final draft—will take time and resources away from the designer and you.
Additional Information: Requirements
Do you require the designer to use specific text, colors, or images? If so, supply these details to the designer. When providing colors for a print job, provide CMYK percentages or, better yet, Pantone color swatches. If it’s a web design, send them RGB hex color codes. This will make it easier for the designer and help the project run smoothly. Similarly, in academic work, clarity and structure matter—consider how detailed briefs are also key when working with an annotated bibliography essay writer to ensure accurate and insightful research summaries.
If it's a web design, send them RGB hex color codes. This will make it easier for the designer and help the project run smoothly.
Conclusion
If you address everything in this post, you should have a “designer-friendly” brief ready and raring to go.
Take your time filling out the sections—the more information you put into the document, the faster the end result will come. For further reading, check out imjustcreative's blog posts.
This article is designed to help you think through your requirements so designers can interpret the brief and quickly create relevant designs for your project.
Alternatively, you can use these questions to create a brief for yourself. Your answers will guide you when you use AI design tools like Design.com’s AI logo generator or AI business card generator for your marketing collateral.
***
DesignCrowd's 600,000+ designers are a talented bunch. If you have a similar project in mind or need a graphic design to promote your company or organization you can invite designers from DesignCrowd's designer directory directly to your project for free.
If you're looking for freelance design jobs, find out more about the benefits when you join DesignCrowd today.
This article was originally published on August 8, 2012
Written by DesignCrowd on Tuesday, March 8, 2016
DesignCrowd is an online marketplace providing logo, website, print and graphic design services by providing access to freelance graphic designers and design studios around the world.
