Great design projects start with great design briefs – that way both you and your designer are clear on what’s needed and what you’re trying to achieve.
But don’t worry. This doesn’t always need to be a formal document or request for proposal. And don’t panic if you have no idea how to write a brief!
Often the best design briefs come from having a chat with your designer. They might have questions about things you haven’t thought of and they can answer any questions you have. Your designer can then use the information to create a scope of work – basically, this is your design brief, and it can be a list or description of the work they’ll provide – so that you both know exactly what you’ll be getting.
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There are a few things you should know before you chat though. So that you can make the best use of your time together.
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Let’s take a look at the things you should think about to get your project off to a great start.
What is required?
Do you need a logo, website, a leaflet, or a brochure?
Your designer needs to know what kind of project you’re going to be talking about, as different types of project have different requirements and they’ll affect the questions they need to ask you.
For example, if you’re getting a website, what kind of site is it? Do you need a basic blog, a brochure-style site or an all-singing, all-dancing e-commerce site?
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What’s the aim of the project?
Do you want to attract new customers?
Increase your sales?
Or provide information and increase brand awareness?
And if you’re aiming to attract new customers or increase sales, do you have a target in mind? Try to work out a rough idea of how many new customers per week, month or year you need, or what percentage of an increase you want.
Think about what you want to achieve, and how you’ll know if/when you’ve achieved it. How can you track your progress?
Who is the target market?
Also think about who you’re trying to attract – who does the design need to appeal to? Perhaps you have several products or services that need to appeal to different demographics.
Make some notes on:
- Who are they?
- What problems do they have that your products/services will solve?
Who else is involved in the project?
Will you be the main day-to-day contact for this project or should your designer liaise with someone else in your business?
And are you the sole decision maker for this project or will someone else be involved?
It would be super helpful for your designer to know if someone else will be approving payments, or if there’s a committee you need to run the designs past.
When do you need the project completed?
If you have a specific event you need your brochure for, or you’re planning a launch party for your new brand, site or product, that’s something your designer needs to know about as soon as possible.
Also, let your designer know if there are other things happening that might affect the project schedule – like holidays you’re planning to take or if you’re about to move house. If you’ll be out of touch or not looking at emails for a while, be upfront about it so that these times can be worked into the project schedule rather than causing delays once work has started.
What’s your budget?
Try to work out what you can afford to spend on the project. It doesn’t have to be exact, just a ball-park figure will do.
It’ll help you and designer determine whether you can afford the all-singing, all dancing parts of the website, or that lovely spot varnish on your brochure. And if your needs and budget don’t quite line up you and your designer can chat about ways to adjust the scope of work so that they will match.
Get your project off to a great start
Don’t worry about being super specific when you think about these questions. If you don’t know exactly how many pages your brochure or website needs to have, you and your designer can work it out together.
But having just a rough idea about all these things can help you and your designer have a really productive chat and create an awesome design brief to help get your project off to a great start.
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