How to brief a designer, writer or agency properly
Here's a thing agencies and freelancers won't tell you, because it sounds like we're passing the buck: a lot of disappointing creative work is the client's fault. Not because the client is difficult, but because the brief was three sentences long and ended with "make it pop".
The brief is the cheapest lever you have on quality. Twenty minutes of clear writing before the work starts saves you rounds of "not quite" afterwards, and gets you better output for the exact same fee. Here's how to write one that works — whether you're hiring a designer, a copywriter, or a whole agency.
Why the brief matters more than the budget
You can hire a brilliant designer and still get mediocre work if they're guessing what you want. Talented people produce their best when they understand the goal and have room to solve it — starve them of context and they'll play it safe, because safe is what survives vague feedback.
A good brief isn't a cage. It's the difference between "design me a logo" and "help this bakery feel warm and local so mums choose it over the franchise down the road". One is a task. The other is a problem worth solving well.
The five things every brief needs
Forget the fancy templates. A brief that covers these five things will beat 90% of what professionals actually receive:
- What you need made. Be specific. Not "some social stuff" but "six Instagram posts and three story templates for our July sale".
- Who it's for. The real audience, described like a person. "Adelaide mums, 30–45, time-poor, value local" tells a designer more than "everyone".
- What it has to achieve. The job the work is doing. Bookings? Awareness? Getting people to read one specific thing? Name the outcome.
- The hard facts. Deadline, budget, sizes, word count, where it'll appear, any must-include details. The boring stuff that causes the most friction when it's missing.
- A couple of examples. Two or three things you like — and crucially, why you like them. "This one, because it feels calm and premium" is gold. A pile of links with no notes is noise.
What to leave out
The most common mistake isn't too little detail — it's too much of the wrong kind. Don't design the thing for them. If you specify the font, the colours, the layout and the exact words, you've hired an expensive pair of hands and thrown away the expertise you're paying for.
Tell them the goal and the guardrails. Leave the execution to the person you hired to execute. If you find yourself writing the brief so tightly that anyone could deliver it, you probably didn't need a professional for it.
The "why" behind every request
Whenever you ask for something specific, add the reason. "Make the logo bigger" is an instruction that might be wrong. "The logo feels lost, people aren't registering who it's from" is a problem — and a good designer might solve it better than by simply enlarging things.
This one habit — problems not instructions — is the difference between clients who get better work every round and clients who get exactly what they asked for and are quietly disappointed by it. It's the same principle behind writing a homepage that works: say what you're trying to achieve, not just what you want on the page.
A brief you can copy
Steal this. Fill in the blanks, keep it to a page, send it before the first conversation rather than after:
| Section | What to write |
|---|---|
| Project | What you need made, in one line |
| Audience | Who it's for, described as a real person |
| Goal | The outcome it has to drive |
| Message | The one thing it must get across |
| Must-haves | Non-negotiables — logo, offer, dates, legals |
| Practicalities | Deadline, budget, sizes, formats |
| References | 2–3 examples you like, and why |
| Success | How you'll know it worked |
Feedback is part of the brief too
The brief doesn't end when the work starts. When the first draft lands, resist "I don't love it" — it's true but useless. Point at what's not working and why: "the headline feels corporate, we're meant to sound like a mate". Specific feedback gets you a better second version; vague feedback gets you a different random version.
Do this well and you'll find good people want to keep working with you. Briefing clearly and responding usefully makes you the client that freelancers clear their schedule for — which, when you're relying on outside help to grow, is worth more than a slightly lower rate. If you've not yet decided how much of this to hand over at all, the DIY-versus-agency question is the place to start.
Briefing questions, answered
The essentials are: what you need made, who it's for, what it has to achieve, the practical facts (deadline, budget, sizes or word count), and a couple of examples you like with a note on why. Everything else is a bonus. Keep it to a page if you can.
Detailed on the goal and the constraints, loose on the execution. Tell them what success looks like and what can't change — deadline, budget, must-have message. Then leave room for their expertise on how to get there. Over-specifying the how is how you pay a professional to be your hands.
Nine times out of ten it's the brief, not the freelancer. Vague instructions produce vague work, and 'you'll know it when you see it' guarantees several expensive rounds of guessing. Spend twenty minutes writing down what you actually want before the work starts and most of those problems disappear.
Want a hand shaping the brief?
Not sure how to describe what you're after? That's half of what a good first conversation is for. Tell us the rough idea and we'll help turn it into something any designer or writer could run with.
Talk it through with us →