Good graphic design doesn’t start with your graphic designer – it starts with the brief.
A clear, detailed creative brief lays the foundation for any marketing or graphic design project. Objectives, messaging, tone, targeting – this crucial document is the blueprint from which your brand’s upcoming design or marketing project will be built.
Want to learn how to write a graphic design brief? Our graphic design agency in Melbourne can offer you some designer’s advice and perspective to get your brief just right. This will help you to create better briefs and ensure your brand continues to flourish.
The importance of a creative brief in marketing and graphic design project planning
A good brief provides clarity and direction
The brief sets the groundwork for the rest of the design project. It guides the design team by outlining goals, describing your desired aesthetic, and ensures that your graphic design agency is on the same page as you.
Graphic designers are good at visually communicating your brand. But we need a clear and well-written brief to ensure we understand your business and can produce the ideal outcome.
A good brief means good workflow, improving your design agency’s efficiency
A good design brief doesn’t just set out what you want the finished product to look like. It will also set expectations, deadlines, communication lines, approval processes and more. It ensures that your graphic designer, marketing agency, or brand consultant knows exactly what you want and that the project runs smoothly and is delivered on-time and on-budget.
How to write a graphic design brief for your marketing agency
Tell us about yourself – provide context and other important information
If you’re working with an agency for the first time, don’t assume that your graphic designer knows your brand or industry the same way you do. If you want your designs to resonate with your audience, please share your knowledge. Tell us in your brief about your competitors, what sets you apart, as well as what resonates with your target audience.
Including this in your brief helps your agency get to know you and your brand. Their understanding of you will continue to grow to create something that resonates with your customers.
Include examples of what you want your design to look like
A picture paints a thousand words, so when putting together a brief, don’t be afraid to include visuals to give your designer something solid to work off and help them understand what you are looking for. Examples could be designs from previous campaigns, your own draft, or something that you’ve seen that stood out to you. Whatever best captures your vision and intent.
Clearly define your target audience
Who do you want to reach with your designs? Be sure you outline in your brief exactly who your brand wants to connect with. That means going beyond demographics if you can – tell us about your target audience’s interests, lifestyle and professional info.
With this information, your graphic design agency can create a buyer persona and create designs that resonate more strongly. This can mean means design choices that evoke specific emotions and thoughts, or using language that directly addresses their pain points.
Outline graphic design must-haves
Good design is only effective when all aspects of a brand are cohesive and work together to tell the same story. Effective brands have certain aesthetic and visual must-haves such as brand colours, preferred fonts, and more.
Ideally, your graphic design team will already have a copy of your brand guidelines on hand to refer to. If not, it’s important to include your visual must-haves in your graphic design brief. Or better yet, give them your style guide so they know how to best communicate your brand.
Clearly define what’s in scope and what isn’t
The creative side of a graphic design brief is important – just as important however is the time management side of things. In particular, scope creep is one of the biggest issues brands face when planning projects.
According to research from 2021, up to 34% of projects globally suffer from scope creep. Graphic design and marketing projects are no exception.
What starts as a small-scale, narrow project can quickly snowball as requests and additions are made. Clearly defining your scope, budget, and design goals in the original brief keeps the project on-task and stops projects from getting out of hand.
Discuss deliverables with your designer
A good graphic design brief doesn’t only prevent scope-creep – it also clearly defines deliverables, as well as what you expect from your designer or marketing team.
It’s important to be as specific as possible when discussing deliverables. In addition to discussing what needs to be created (social media tiles, banners, print designs, etc) you should also outline resolutions, image dimensions, and file types. The more detail, the better!
Establish proper communication and approval processes
Graphic design is a collaborative process. You’re the one who knows your brand best, so your input is essential to making designs that are true to your brand. That’s why it’s so important to establish how communication is going to work in your creative brief.
What do you prefer, emails or cloud sharing? Who should your designer contact if you’re not available? Do you prefer ongoing updates or do you only want to be contacted when your graphic design agency needs your sign-off? A good brief will establish all these and more.
MOO is a graphic design agency in Melbourne that will execute your brief to the letter
A good creative brief forms the foundation of a successful design project. However, you still need a graphic design studio to execute it.
Our marketing portfolio includes nationally-recognised brands across a range of industries. This breadth of knowledge gives our team the skills and experience needed to turn your brief into something that resonates with your customers and clients.
In addition to graphic design, our marketing agency in Melbourne offers a range of other services that help reach your target audience. We have the capacity and scale to meet briefs including:
- Web design and development
- Branding services such as brand strategy and design
- Digital marketing services including SEO, email marketing, and more
- Accessible web design
- Brand and marketing strategy development
- Copywriting
- Marketing video production
Whatever the brief, get in touch with our team today to learn how we can help your brand stand out from the herd. Simply get in touch with us on either (03) 8650 9113 or our office mobile number 0466 066 691, or email us at moo@moo.com.au