Credit: Yuri Arcurs on Photodune
Creatives need a detailed brief. Without it we are feeling in the dark, with little clue of our destination.
We need targeted information from our clients to deliver high quality finished work that meets the client’s expectations. We want to deliver polished work and we need the right information to do that.
As freelancers, it’s up to us to direct our clients on how to deliver an informed and detailed brief. Often this means putting together a questionnaire that clients fill out. This could be a website form, PDF, or text document, whichever you and your client are comfortable using. Ultimately, you need to collect the information needed for the project brief.
Only experienced clients will be familiar with compiling creative briefs and most clients will need some hand holding through the process. Whether you use a formal questionnaire, or ask questions over the phone, will depend on you and your clients. However, don’t discount the need to collect this project brief information, it’s how every one of your projects should get started.
Depending on your freelance focus, the information you’ll need for a creative brief will differ somewhat. For web design briefs you’ll want to collect competing website information and for graphic design briefs you’ll need an idea of the style your client wants. Though, of course, there are some commonalities in all creative briefs, such as: client background information, target audience, budget, project scope, description of deliverables, and deadlines.
We’ve compiled a bunch of articles that will assist you in creating questionnaires for your new clients and improve the client briefs you have to work from. If you’re not currently collecting creative briefs well from your clients, then these articles will get you on the right path. This will improve your bottom line greatly, as you’ll have much better information to work with to produce your client projects, which will lead to greater results.
Tips for Creating Graphic Design Briefs
7 Basics to Create a Good Design Brief
Objectives and goals are something we all need to focus on when writing a good design brief, although we need more than that. Not only will you gain knowledge about the writing process, but also how to target the audience you’re working with.
A great resource for anyone who needs some basic information on what one should think about, what to include, how to brief someone and a lot more useful information.
How Do You Write a Design Brief?
Pointing out some valuable points of interests for anyone in need of some help with writing a good brief. No matter if you work for an agency or as a freelancer, this article is for you.
10 Tips for Writing Graphic Design Briefs
Straight to the point article with 10 quick tips on the writing process for a graphic design brief. Could easily be implemented into any type of brief if one is a tad creative.
How To Write An Effective Design Brief and Get The Design You Want!
One of the best articles I’ve read in a while, packed with tips and useful information for anyone who needs it. Jacob Cass covers everything you need to know about how to write an effective design brief with valuable insights.
Client Questionnaires and Creating Web Design Briefs
How to Write a Web Site Creative Brief
A creative brief, just like any brief, is a key component of any web project (or project for that matter). This article includes a creative brief example in PDF format for anyone who needs some help with writing one.
How to Extract the Facts with a Web Design Client Questionnaire
What should you ask your clients during the initial contact? Why should you ask it? These are some of the many questions being answered in this in-depth and useful article by, Marta Retallick.
Thinking about redesigning your own site or maybe you’ve just landed a client who needs a website. No matter what the case might be, you will need to get some basic information to consider before doing it.
Web Design Questionnaires, Project Sheets and Work Sheets
When one is in contact with a new client you’ll need to collect the information one needs to give an accurate quote. This collection of questionnaires, project sheets and work sheets will help you get started in no time. Some questionnaires are better than the others, but all of them are a great resource to have to get your client’s project started.
How to Create an Effective Web Design Questionnaire
Learn how to write a questionnaire just by shorting down your questions into simple, straight-forward questions instead of longer ones. Shorter questions will make the clients do the writing for you and save you additional time.
Questions to Ask Clients Before Designing a Website
Brian Hoff shares some questions for everyone to consider asking clients before doing any work, relevant questions that can be tweaked for any type of brief, and not only for website design.
How To Create The Perfect Client Questionnaire
Creating the perfect questionnaire is a real challenge, this article will point you in the right direction for creating just that, a perfect client questionnaire.
Your Starter For Ten: 10 Things Never To Leave Out Of A Web Design Brief
There are a few things that’s are essential for all types of briefs. While this article aims towards web design, one can easy implement these things into any type of brief you need.
Fundamentals of Creative Advertising Briefs
How to Write a Good Design/Idea Brief
Covering the goals and fundamentals of a good advertising brief, how to pitch it and what to include, a much better article than this will be hard to find.
Producing the Perfect Creative Brief
In-depth, easy to understand and straight to the point article. Very helpful and you’ll get the information one needs to get everything included the first time around.
A great slide share presentation of how to write a creative brief. Not only a unique article in a way but also a very informative and useful one to say the least.
Agencies Should Demand Better Briefs From Their Clients
A great article on why agencies really should demand better briefs from their clients, as most of us have been there, as either the client or freelancer at one point or another. I think all of us understand that everyone can be a bit encrypted with their requests sometimes.
Creative Brief Templates and Tools
- Graphic Design Worksheet – Brian Hoff’s graphic design client questionnaire form.
- Duoh Worksheets – Downloadable worksheets available on Duoh’s contact page.
- Briefix.com – Tool for creating briefs for clients.
- Web Design Brief – Example formats for web design briefs.
- Sample “Classic” Creative Brief for 2011 – Sample advertising creative questionnaire.
Photo credit: Some rights reserved by Yuri Arcurs.
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