Jory MacKay on March 04, 2025 How to write a design brief: 5 steps to master design briefing (+ free template)
🎁 Bonus Material: Free Design Brief Template
Being a designer is hard. Balancing the desire to design something remarkable against a project’s cost, time, and scope limitations requires equal doses of creativity, collaboration, and pure grit. Luckily, this is where a design brief can really help you out!
Unlike other types of projects, such as software development or marketing campaigns, design projects often run into trouble when the stakeholder’s vision doesn’t match the final deliverable.
Design briefs help bridge this gap, providing the context, structure, and guardrails to align stakeholders and increase the chances of creating a design that customers love.
Jump to a section:
In this guide, we’ll dive deep into design briefs, including why they’re so important, what to include in them, and the best practices to help you get them spot on every time. Plus, we’ll show you how Planio helps designers manage the entire creative process, as well as arming you with a free design brief template to help you get started straight away.
What is a design brief? Is it really necessary?
A design brief is a document that clearly defines the scope, deliverables, and constraints of a design project.
“If you think good design is expensive, you should look at the cost of bad design.” - Dr. Ralf Speth
A good design brief lays out the agreed goals, scope, requirements, budget, timelines, audience, and context of a design project, providing the designer with everything they need to deliver the expected outputs.
Like other types of project documents, such as a scope of work, a design brief is often co-created by the project team to align everyone’s expectations on what’s required.
Once signed off, the design brief serves as a blueprint for your design team, providing them with a clear foundation to work from and to measure their success against.
For example, in a project to re-launch a company’s brand, a design brief could be used to scope the design of a new logo. Within this, the brief will define the goals and objectives of the logo, how it fits into the bigger picture, how long the designer has to create the first draft, as well as any background research into the target audience.
Using a design brief in this way helps the creative project management process, by:
- Building a stronger designer-project relationship. Design briefs help provide structure, set expectations, and align on thinking. This helps build a better working relationship, avoiding friction and uncertainty further down the road.
- Providing valuable context that can guide the design process. Business owners, project managers, and sponsors benefit from context and backgrounds that many designers don’t have. Providing this information in the design briefs helps everyone get to the same level of understanding.
- Setting context and direction on how the designs will be used. There’s no point coming up with an elaborate design if it can’t be practically used. Design briefs set the guardrails of what’s possible for other teams, ensuring the design can fit into the wider project solution — for example, ensuring the design format is supported by a website’s technology.
- Promoting better communication between stakeholders. Designers, project managers, product teams, and any other stakeholders need to work as one, harmonious team. Design briefs provide a platform for good communication, helping everyone to bond around a common objective.
- Aligning with the broader project plan. Design is often just one element of a broader project. Design briefs help designers understand how they fit into the bigger picture, including how much budget they have, the timescales available to them, and the impacts/dependencies on other activities.
- Reducing risk and uncertainty. Design briefs also form part of good governance and help reduce risk and uncertainty for everyone involved. While they can seem like unnecessary admin at first, the alignment, context, and certainty they provide helps reduce project risk and the chance of issues further down the road.
- Improving design quality. The more information the designer has, the better their final design will be. A structured, information-filled design brief increases the chances of creating a design that users will love and engage with, whether that’s a digital product or a service-based offering.
Wait, how is this different from a creative brief?
At this point, you might be thinking a design brief sounds an awful lot like a creative brief — and you’d be right to think that, too. The main difference between the two is their perspective. Creative briefs cover the big picture, while design briefs are focused on a specific deliverable.
Going back to our earlier example of a company rebrand, a creative brief will cover the overarching tone of voice, objectives, and purpose of the entire re-brand, whereas design briefs would specifically focus on a key deliverable. In practice, the two work hand-in-hand, with the creative brief helping to guide lower-level design briefs.
Who’s responsible for writing the design brief?
Design briefs may be written and signed off by various people depending on the business context. Here are a few common examples:
- Business owners, marketing managers, or similar. When companies employ a design agency (or have a dedicated design team), it’s often the responsibility of the “client” — either external or internal — to write the design brief and provide context about what needs to be done.
- Design lead. For design work being run within a larger marketing team, someone with the role of ‘design lead’ may write a brief and hand it to a team member. This design lead is typically a senior team member, such as a Marketing Manager or Brand Director.
- Project lead. For large-scale projects with a design element, the design brief may be written by a leader within the project. This could be a Project Manager, Project Director, or even the Project Sponsor depending on the project’s structure.
- Collaborative efforts. In many instances, design briefs are collaborative efforts among several team members. That said, even when collaborating, there should always be one person that’s accountable for signing off the brief before handing it to a designer.
Design briefing 101: The 8 essential elements of a design brief
While each company will have a unique design brief format, regardless of where you work, all design briefs should have a common set of critical information.
Here’s a breakdown of a typical design brief piece-by-piece, as well as actionable tips on how to compile each part.
1. High-level business or client overview
All good design briefs start by getting to know the company or client at hand, including their background, unique selling points (USPs), and customer proposition. This is especially important for client-based projects, where the designer doesn’t work for the company directly, and as such, won’t have legacy knowledge.
Where to get this information:
- Internal teams: This information may come from your department’s director, project sponsor, or another internal department, such as the strategy or communications team.
- Client-facing teams: This information should come from the client themselves, but you may find extra information on the client’s website or in their marketing materials.
Key questions this section should answer:
- Who is the client/business? What’s their history?
- What do they do?
- What makes them unique?
- What do their customer’s love/hate about them?
2. Project context and objectives
Once you have a good understanding of the business, it’s then time to explain the context and objectives that sit behind the design brief. This helps set more of the recent history, helping to uncover why a design is needed, and the objectives the designer is supporting.
Where to get this information:
- Internal teams: This will come from whoever is sponsoring the design activity. In larger projects, this sort of information may also come from the project’s business case or align to a broader product strategy.
- Client-facing teams: This information should come from the client themselves. This context is critical to ensure you meet the client’s expectations, so don’t be afraid to ask additional questions if the brief is light in this area.
Key questions this section should answer:
- Why has this design project been commissioned?
- Who has requested this design brief?
- What are the problems with the current design?
- How will this design support the broader project objectives?
3. Project scope and overview
The scope is the real crux of any design brief, as it should clearly state what is required from the design project. While no design brief should be thousands of words long, you’ll want the scope to be fairly detailed to ensure everyone is aligned on what’s expected.
Where to get this information:
- Internal teams: These details will come from the key point of contact leading the request for a new design. There may be inputs from other collaborators, and may look similar to a scope of work or project brief.
- Client-facing teams: This information will come from the client themselves, and may include input from multiple stakeholders. Again, the detail here is especially important, as the size and shape of the scope will inevitably inform the costs charged to the client to complete the work.
Key questions this section should answer:
- What design are we creating? Is this a new design or a re-design?
- What are the client’s expectations?
- What is in scope, and what is out of scope?
- What does good look like? What is the definition of done?
- What’s the process for managing new scope?
4. Key deliverables
Once you’re clear on what you’re delivering, it’s time to agree on how it will be delivered. This is where collaboration with other departments is key to ensure the designs that are created are usable and workable as part of the broader project solution.
Where to get this information:
- Internal teams: It will likely be a collaborative effort to agree on the format, size, shape, and structure of the deliverables to ensure they’re compatible with other systems, products, or processes.
- Client-facing teams: This information will come from the client themselves, and will likely follow industry recognized formats and standards. For example, digital designs may be requested in Photoshop format, with ‘RAW’ file formats also included to protect intellectual property.
Key questions this section should answer:
- What will the end result look like?
- How will the designs be used in the future?
- What are the key, tangible project deliverables required?
- What formats, standards, or technologies need to be considered?
5. Design guidelines and standards
Once the more practical elements of the brief are defined, the design guidelines and standards help the designer get their creative juices flowing. This is essentially setting the guide rails that will help the designer connect the vision to the output.
Where to get this information:
- Internal teams: Design guidelines should already be in place from your marketing, brand, or communications teams. Many organizations have a defined tone of voice (TOV), color palette, or brand guidelines that can guide the design process.
- Client-facing teams: This information should come from the client, if it’s already in place. For projects where you’re designing these elements from scratch, make sure a broader creative brief is in place to connect your design to a broader strategy.
Key questions this section should answer:
- How will the design align with the broader design guidelines?
- Are TOV, brand guidelines, or creative briefs already in place?
- What are the creative expectations of the design?
6. Competitor analysis
Most businesses operate in busy markets and often use their brand and design to stand out from the crowd.
Understanding competitors and their design styles is essential to balance standing out and being too similar — especially if there’s any risk of trademark or copyright infringement.
Where to get this information:
- Internal teams: There’s a good chance that sales, product, and marketing teams have a good sense of the competition and how to stand out. Use that guidance as well as conducting your own competitive analysis.
- Client-facing teams: This information may not be immediately provided by the client, so don’t be afraid to push for it to better understand their world. Conducting your own design-specific research with a fresh pair of eyes will be useful too.
Key questions this section should answer:
- Who are the company’s competitors?
- What makes this company unique versus competitors?
- What do customers like or dislike about competitors?
- What makes brands stand out in this marketplace?
- What designs have been successful or failed in the past?
7. Target audience
The output of most design projects will be used or seen by customers, so it’s important you understand the target audience in great detail. Fail to do this, and there’s a good chance your design could actually turn customers off, leading to negative business outcomes.
Where to get this information:
- Internal teams: Customer personas may already be defined by your marketing or brand departments. If you’re starting from scratch, speak with customer-facing teams such as sales or support to get a deeper understanding of the customer base, or even consider conducting some user interviews for yourself.
- Client-facing teams: Work with whoever has commissioned the design to understand the end customer in more detail. If you don’t have the information you need, don’t be afraid to ask for connections to customer-facing employees or access to some customers directly.
Key questions this section should answer:
- Who will see or interact with this design work?
- Who is the target audience? What are their pain points?
- What matters to customers? What’s their demographic?
- What are their hobbies, likes, dislikes?
- What are their day-to-day routines? How do they engage with products/services?
There’s no point coming up with an elaborate design if it can’t be practically used. Design briefs set the guardrails.
8. Budget, resources, and timeline
To finish, we know that all projects need to operate within the triple constraint — and design briefs are no exception. All designers need to be clear on the budget and resources they have available to them, and when they are expected to hit key project milestones.
Where to get this information:
- Internal teams: This will come from whoever is overseeing the project. It’s useful to link the design brief to the broader project plan, showing any dependencies or impacts on time, budget, and the resource available.
- Client-facing teams: This information is essential for external projects, as it will form part of the overall quote and sign off. The client lead or client-side project manager should provide clear expectations on timelines, as well as their budget and how they expect it to be spent.
Key questions this section should answer:
- How much budget do we have to complete the design?
- Which resources are available to support the process?
- How long does the designer have? How does it align with the project schedule?
- How often should the client be updated on progress?
- Are there any key milestones to hit?
- How many feedback cycles are included in the timeframe and budget?
Here’s where Planio can help:
Planio is the perfect tool for sharing and tracking design briefs with your team, linking them up to your broader project objectives.
Create an issue in Planio to store all the crucial information relating to the brief, manage the underpinning tasks and design documents, as well as collaborate and get feedback from stakeholders.
As your team works through the brief, you can use Planio to track time spent on specific tasks, progress towards milestones, and any roadblocks that come up.
Example design brief: Steal this template
The best thing about briefs like this are that they typically always follow the same format. Use our free design brief template to ensure the success of your next design project.
Design brief best practices: 5 steps to master the process
Now that you know what to include in a design brief, you’re ready to start putting them into practice to improve the quality and alignment of your design projects. Here are some steps to follow for success:
- Assign clear roles and responsibilities. When creating a design brief, you need to be clear on who is the project owner, who is a contributor, and who is responsible for delivering the design. This helps manage expectations and manage any concerns or conflicts that may occur.
- Seek as much information as possible. As a designer, make sure that you’re strict on getting the information you need to make the design the best it can be. If the brief is missing key information, don’t be afraid to push back on stakeholders to get more details.
- Agree updates to the brief as things develop. Once the brief is signed off, don’t be afraid to make changes or iterations where all parties agree to the impacts. As designs come to life, opinions change, so don’t be too rigid and remain flexible throughout the process.
- Bring in diverse voices. While you need to strike the right balance, get different people to contribute to the design process. Multiple voices, each with different experiences, skills, and knowledge, can only enrich the design, but be careful, as too many cooks may make the project harder to progress.
- Store the design brief somewhere accessible. Tools like Planio work well as a repository for key documents, and a design brief is no different. Storing documents in a project management tools boost collaboration and visibility, helping make the design process as smooth as transparent as possible.
Final thought: A design brief may take time — but good design is worth it
Creative project management is unique, as the subjective nature of design work makes it easy for miscommunication and conflict to arise.
To help, use a standard design brief that helps everyone stay aligned on the goals, objectives, and vision of a new design. After all, great design can be the difference between customers loving and hating a product or service.
Another way to increase the chances of things going right is to use tools like Planio to help your team stay organized. This ensures all of the knowledge, briefs, and design concepts for a project are in one, easy-to-access place that promotes collaboration, communication, and boosts your chances of creating a design your customers will love!
