Whether you have a design team of 10 or it’s just you creating assets, there is ONE HUGE THING that will make your designers happy, AND your projects go smoother, quicker and convert better. Design briefs. I know I know. It sounds so obvious, but build ONE brief template. And make it written in stone. Respect it. Stick to it Take it out on dates Love it tenderly. Every time a stake holder requests an asset, or you’re brainstorming your project needs, ask yourself these questions. Never ever ever (I mean it) start or assign out a task without it.
Highest impact brief questions:
- What is the purpose/goal of project
- Seems like starting with a low ball, but trust me, there is so much power in making yourself/your stakeholder answer this succinctly. It’s harder than you think.
- Audience
- Give them a name. Nancy, our nervous 65 year old grandmother want to travel the world in comfort with Pierce, our 32 year old tech savvy is a new chef – If you have a clear answer to this question, design reviews go faster. Instead of arguing in circles about what you or your CEO likes, you are advocating for what Nancy wants. Such a powerful tool anytime we have a client with too many cooks in the kitchen.
- How do people find this?
- This quickly turn into a bigger strategic question – how are our ads being seen, what is the flow of our conference table etc
- What is your single clear CTA
- And how will we track it?
Extra credit – the execution needs:
- Content for project
- Who will own it, when will they have it done by, ai vs human expectations
- Desired Deliverable
- Digital or print (deck, video time length, PDF, PNG, SVG, Figma file etc)
- Due date flexibility
- Seems obvious but just communicate
- Who should be the point of contact for questions, who’s approval do we need
- Should never be more than 2 people in an ideal world! A camel is a horse designed by committee.
- Examples of similar projects that are successful and why
- (Or that aren’t and why! Sometimes mistakes are as helpful as successes)
I know its tempting to ask ai to fill this out, but that just teaches those involved (designers or even yourself) to skim and not seriously consider these strategic pillars. Treat this like sacred text and those around you will too. Incorporating this one single habit in your design task workflow will make everyone happier, more productive (less meetings), and create higher quality, higher converting projects. We like good design, but we LOVE strategic good design.
