Design Brief template
Ayoa’s Design Brief template will help you manage every aspect of a design project, whether completed in-house or for an external client.
What is a Design Brief?
A design brief (also known as a creative brief) is a document provided to a designer or design team to give them guidance on what they need to deliver as part of a design project – whether they’ve been tasked with creating a poster, brochure, webpage, or advert for a marketing team, or they’re designing an entirely new website from scratch!
Many organizations choose to work with external design agencies and independent freelance designers, and a design brief will commonly be provided by the client to ensure that everyone is on the same page. Design briefs can be provided by any department in a business to an in-house design team if they need them to work on a creative task. In the majority of cases, a design brief will be written by a member of a marketing team as they typically work closely with graphic designers and other creatives.
Why should you use a Design Brief?
Design briefs are essential for ensuring that everyone is kept on the same page when it comes to a design project – particularly if this is being delivered by an external design agency, or the teams involved are working remotely. By using a design brief to clarify the desired outcomes in terms of what should be delivered and when the work should be completed by, you can ensure that everyone is happy with what has been agreed, as well as cut out unnecessary extra meetings for the sake of having meetings!
This document can be as detailed as you like. However, an effective design brief will take into account various factors, such as the client’s branding guidelines, goals, target audience, and any sources of inspiration.
How to use our Design Brief template
Our Design Brief template (or creative brief template) is already divided into relevant sections, so designers can easily organize the information they need and ensure everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet! In fact, it’s already populated with a design brief example to help you get started.
Note: The following instructions are for a designer, but the template can also be used if you are submitting the brief to a designer.
To access the template, sign up to Ayoa. Once you've signed up, navigate to the homepage to create a new whiteboard, mind map or task board and choose this template from the library.
Start by planning a physical or virtual meeting with the client to discuss what needs to be delivered.
Use sticky notes to begin adding information about your client in the first box of the template, such as the company name, website, physical address, telephone number, and who is your key point of contact at the business. Feel free to edit the sticky note examples that are already in the template or add new ones! If you work in-house, you can instead use this section to make a note of who requested the work and the deadline (if you have one).
The template is split into five additional sections; Branding, Goal(s), Creative direction, Target audience, and Inspiration. Run through each of these sections during your meeting with the client, adding the information you gather to the relevant section on sticky notes. Each section already has some example prompts to help you guide your discussion in the right direction, so you can gather the information you need.
The more resources (such as branding guidelines and examples of previous work), you can collate, the better. Ask your client for these and easily attach these files to the template in Ayoa.
Have everything you need? It’s time to start designing! If your design brief changes at any stage, easily edit the template as often as required.
