Business People & Entrepreneurs: This is How to Write a Brief

Just like a resume is an essential part of the job-seeking world, learning how to write a brief could make or break whether or not you’ll be working with your next potential client.

Getting the design brief right for your next project is so important in terms of time, budget, productivity and, of course, your credibility as a business since you’ll want to make sure that you get things right the first time.

So you can get off on the right foot when writing a design brief making sure you impress these new clients and project managers, here’s everything you need to know about how to write a brief.

How To Write a Brief: Start with the Basics

Firstly, it’s impossible to learn how to write a brief for a client if you have no idea who they are. You need to make sure this information is clear in your head.

Before writing, do your research. This means asking them questions, researching their website, their social media pages, their customer base, everything you can to make sure you have a clear image of who your customer is and what they are looking for from your business.

How To Write a Brief: Define the Project Boundaries

So, you’ve learned the basics of writing a design brief creation, learning about your target audience and clients, but what do you actually need to do in order to create your final website design brief?

In this next step when learning how to write a brief, you’ll need to make sure that you’re clear on what the project is that the client wants and what you’re going to need to do in order to make it a success.

The more detail you can include in this stage, the more accurate and efficient your website design project will be, but remember to leave room for flexibility and changes later down the line.

Here are a couple of things you can ask yourself;

• Is this a logo project?
• Is this a web design project?
• Is this an ad campaign?
• Is this a branding campaign?
• Are you printing anything? (consider size and format)
• What is the budget for the project?
• How much will it cost you?
• What is the timeframe for the project?

“These questions are a foundation for your project, so you can get the right people for the job in the right mindset, and you can be sure that you’ll succeed,” shares Laura Harvey, a web designer for Assignment Help.

How To Write a Brief: Check Out the Competition

Now that you’re aware of everything that your client wants and what to include in your web design brief, it’s now time to see what’s out there already and what you’re competing with. After all, you want your design piece to be the best there is.

Of course, you want your client’s piece to be unique, but you’ll also want them to stand out while not confusing the customer. You can also make a checklist of what your competitor’s have included in their services and briefs to ensure that you don’t miss anything out and, at the very least, are working and offering services on par with your competition. Ideally, however, you’ll want to be able to offer the same, and more, in order to secure the very best contracts.

How To Write a Brief: the Procedure

Of course, for the best results you need to know how to write a brief, referring to the actual documentation.

Typically, you might have put your design briefs into a folder and printed them out for your client and the rest of your design team to read. However, why not take advantage of modern-day technology and put them online?

You can host these briefs on password protected pages of your website, and it makes it so much easier for everybody who needs access to the brief to access it effortlessly at any time. This will may your web design brief look great in the eyes of your client and is incredibly convenient for everybody involved.

Finalizing Your Website Design Brief

It’s so important to make sure you’re treating your design brief as a professional document. When you get near to completion, you’ll want to make sure that it’s completely free from error and as professional as possible. Here are some tools to help:

1. Affect vs Effect and State of Writing. These are two writing guides you can follow to make sure your brief is properly structured by using a design brief example.
2. Paper Fellows and Academized. These are two professional proofreading tools, as recommended by the Huffington Post.
3. Grammar Checker and My Writing Way. You can use these two free online tools to help correct and update your knowledge of using grammar.
4. OXEssays. This is an online writing community where you can find professional writing advice, as reviewed by Best British Essays.
5. Cite It In and Easy Word Count. Two free online tools for adding and editing citations and references in your brief, or for tracking the word count of your creative brief template. Here you may check one more word counter tool.

Don’t Forget the Basics

After you’re finishing off your design brief, it’s important to make sure that you’ve not missed out any of the basic information that a design brief should contain.

“After you’ve finished your brief, there are several things you should do,” explains Matthew Price, a project manager for Essayroo. “Make sure you go through and make notes while tidying up your brief, so it’s direct and concise. Also, ensure that your client’s information is clearly labelled on the piece and everybody’s contact names, numbers and emails which are involved in the project are included for convenience.”

And that’s how to write a brief for your next clients. If you want to make things more productive, simply write a creative brief template to work from that you can use in every project, or use an online design brief example to work through, ensuring you don’t miss out any important information that you’re going to need.