As a designer, your priority is getting projects that would keep your creativity flowing and improve your design sense. But remember, getting a significant project would account for nothing if you don’t make it a successful project upon completion. If you want to be a great designer – your work needs to speak for itself, and that can only happen if you stay committed to it. We understand that there would be days when you’d run out of creative fuel, and on those days, a design brief template would save you.
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What Is A Design Brief?
In simpler terms, a design brief is a document of agreement between you and your client. It is where you define your scope of work, design ideations, and clarify the expectations. Think of it as a project management tool designed to help you stay on track.
A well-written design brief would allow you to successfully craft the project’s outline, identify any shortcomings, and streamline your design process.
What Is The Purpose Of A Design Brief Template?
How many times have you found yourself overwhelmed after landing an exceptional project? More importantly, what do you do to break free from the excitement, the nervousness, or even the overly increasing workload of design? The answer is that you plan.
A design brief template is that very plan that’d save you on days you’re lost and even on those when you’re not by providing you a roadmap to your goal. Brainstorming and crafting a design brief from scratch every time you have a new project is certainly time-consuming. And so, to make your work more productive, you’d need a design brief template.
It helps you in:
- Identifying the needs, expectations, and foundation of the client.
- Design the scope of work, which would help you avoid repeated revisions and multiple changes.
- Draw and estimate the timeline for the project.
- Answer the queries, confusion, or questions of your clients. Often, the client would have questions about the target audience or timelines, and a brief would help you save the time of eradicating those confusions.
Why Do I Need A Design Brief Template?
Of course, a design brief isn’t just limited to a designer. Many professions require you to create a design brief for effective work delivery. Here’s a list of some of those professions in which you’d need a design brief:
- Branding
- Art and Illustration Work
- Web and Mobile Design
- Interior Designing
- Fashion Designing
- Architecture
Elements Of A Design Brief Template
Now that you know why you’d need a design brief template so let’s talk about the crucial elements that’d make your design brief template stand out from the rest. Firstly, you need to understand that to be successful in the designing field. You’d need to be more expansive in your view of design. You should be willing to learn and relearn, and only then can you make progress with each project. That being said, these elements would help you create a template that’d sell. However, you need to keep improving it with time.
Company Profile
Include the company’s vision and mission so that your design work goes in line with it. You need to identify the brand’s competitors and their branding to become a problem for your designs.
Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
This is where you pitch your uniqueness and creativity. Show your client how your designs would add value to their project. What is it that you’re doing different or better, and how it will help them successfully market their product or service?
Project Overview
This is the mainframe of your entire design brief. Make sure that you include all the necessary details about the project here and answer any confusion. For instance, will you be redesigning an existing product, or what obstacles might you face? You might think that this won’t be necessary. However, dispelling all doubts would ensure successful results.
Do include the work scope and define it accurately, so the client knows what is covered and what is not a part of the deal.
Target Audience and Market Position
Define your market position and your target audience, so you know what to include in your design and grab the attention of the specific demographic that you’re creating content for.
A great way of doing so would be by crafting a detailed user persona, which would include their interests, social standing, and behavior patterns. This way, your design would be specific to their liking and would have a higher probability of resonating with the target audience.
Objectives
Identify the goals and the objectives of your collaboration by clearly stating the goals from both sides. Write what the client wants you to achieve and then break them down into milestones you’d make.
People/Teams Involved
In an instance where you’d be working on a project that’d involve more than one person, identify the team involved in the project. Ensure that you delegate their duties and include them in the design brief, so the client is aware of your design process throughout.
This would also allow you, the head of the project, to keep tabs on the people working on the project and measure their progress.
However, you should know that a design brief template wouldn’t solve all your problems. You’d still need to collaborate with your team members and clients to review the designs you’re making and getting feedback on it.
Doing so over mails can cost you a lot of time, and so to avoid that, you need GoVisually – a platform where you can effectively collaborate over your designs.
Budget
This is perhaps one of the most crucial parts of the design brief template. You can spend millions to create a great design or create it on a limited budget. It all depends on the client. You shouldn’t allow the client to exploit you into delivering work that’d require more finances than being offered. So, decide the budget according to the requirements.
Timeline
And finally, make a timeline for the entire project. You should set milestones for yourself and the team. This way, the client won’t buzz you before time, and you’d have the freedom to complete the work according to the given pace.
3 Examples Of Design Brief Templates
You should create a design brief template on your own so that it can fit your personalized needs. To give you a headstart, here are three examples of design brief templates.
Example 1: Act On’s Video Creative Brief
Notice how they’ve crafted almost everything as a question. Doing so helps the client understand it more clearly and refer back quickly if they have a problem of their own.
Example 2: Template Made on Excel
You can easily replicate a similar design brief template using excel or Google Sheets. It’d save you a lot of time and can be used for multiple clients.
Example 3: PowerPoint Template
And finally, you can download a PowerPoint template of your choice and like from the Envato Market. They can be custom designed as well and have built-in features to help you out.
Key Takeaway
Remember, great one-off designs don’t make a great designer – consistency in delivering work does. If you genuinely want to be one of the best, then you’d have to give your best as well. A design brief template allows you to be the best version of yourself and helps you stay focused throughout the project – from its conception till successful completion.
