The quality of the brief determines the quality of the outcome. This is true of almost every creative project, and it’s especially true of branding and design. A good brief doesn’t constrain a designer. It liberates them. It replaces guesswork with clarity and allows the creative work to focus on the right problem.
Here are the seven things every client should know before starting a branding or design project, drawn from eight years of receiving briefs that range from outstanding to impossible.
1. Know What Problem You Are Trying to Solve
The brief isn’t “I need a logo.” The brief is the underlying problem: “My current logo was made in Canva five years ago and doesn’t reflect how far the business has come. When I send proposals, I’m embarrassed by how we look.” The specific problem shapes everything. A designer who understands the real problem will make entirely different decisions than one who is simply executing a technical task.
2. Be Specific About Your Audience
“Our target audience is small business owners” tells a designer almost nothing. “Our typical client is a sole trader or small team running a service business in the UK (a plumber, a solicitor, a personal trainer) who is growing for the first time and wants to look credible without looking corporate” tells them a great deal. The visual language for those two descriptions is completely different.
Be as specific as you can. If you know your best existing client, describe them. What they care about, what they distrust, what aspirations they have.
3. Articulate the Feeling, Not Just the Look
“Modern and professional” is the most common brief descriptor in the world, and it’s almost useless. Every business wants to appear modern and professional. What distinguishes yours? Is it warm and approachable, or cool and authoritative? Is it bold and energetic, or refined and understated?
The most useful brief exercise: describe three brands (from any industry) whose visual language you find genuinely appealing. Not brands you want to copy, but brands whose aesthetic resonates with you. Pattern recognition across your three choices will tell a designer more about your taste than any list of adjectives.
4. Tell Us What You Absolutely Do Not Want
Negative constraints are extraordinarily useful. “Don’t use blue. Every competitor is blue.” “Don’t use serif fonts. Our clients found it old-fashioned.” “Don’t use abstract icons. Our clients need to understand the logo immediately.” These instructions save rounds of revision and prevent designers from confidently exploring directions that would be instantly rejected.
5. Describe How and Where the Design Will Be Used
A logo that works on a website header may not work embossed on a leather notebook cover. A colour palette that looks beautiful on screen may be impossible or prohibitively expensive to print. Tell your designer every use case you can anticipate: digital (website, social media, email), print (business cards, letterhead, packaging, signage), merchandise, physical environments, uniforms. The more complete the picture, the better the design decisions.
6. Be Honest About Your Budget and Timeline
Withholding budget information doesn’t protect you; it wastes everyone’s time. If you have £200 for a logo, a designer who works at £800 can’t help you. If you have £2,000 and your designer thinks you have £200, they’ll under-scope the work and under-deliver relative to what’s possible.
Timeline matters for the same reason. If you genuinely need something in three days, say so. There may be a rush fee, but it’s possible. If you say “no rush” and then ask for delivery in four days, you create friction that damages the working relationship before it’s properly started.
7. Agree on the Revision Process Before You Start
How many rounds of revisions are included? How do you give feedback: written, on a call, via a shared document? Who is the decision-maker if multiple people are involved? What happens if the initial concepts aren’t in the right direction?
These questions answered in advance prevent the most common cause of creative projects going wrong: scope creep and miscommunication around expectations. A good agency will raise these questions themselves. If they don’t, raise them yourself.
One Last Thing
The best creative relationships are collaborative, not transactional. Share context generously, about your business, your customers, your ambitions, even things that feel tangential. Great designers are information sponges. The detail you thought was irrelevant often turns out to be the insight that makes the work genuinely good.
If you’re ready to start a project, contact us for a free quote. We’ll ask all the right questions, give you an honest assessment of what approach will work best, and confirm a price and timeline before any work begins.
Ready to brief your designer?
Use the framework above with a UK studio that explicitly transfers copyright, includes unlimited revisions and delivers every file format.
The brief by project type: what to include
Different project briefs need different details. Below: what each kind of brief should specify.
Logo design brief (1-2 pages)
Must include: business name + tagline if any, what you sell, target customer (industry, size, demographic), competitors (3-5), 3-5 logos you admire + why, colours/styles to avoid, deliverables needed (vector + raster formats), deadline, budget.
Brand identity brief (2-4 pages)
Everything above plus: voice/tone preferences (3-5 adjectives), brand personality (1-2 sentences), where the brand will appear (web, print, packaging, signage), guidelines depth required (mini vs full), and any sub-brands or product lines.
Website brief (2-4 pages)
Pages needed (sitemap), target customer + their journey to purchase, success metrics (enquiries/month, conversion rate target), existing content vs new copy, integrations (Stripe, Mailchimp, calendar booking, etc.), platform preference (WordPress, Shopify, custom), launch deadline.
Packaging brief (3-5 pages)
Product details (size, weight, material, fragility), retail context (shelf vs online), substrate (cardboard, glass, plastic), print run estimates, sustainability requirements, regulatory marks needed (CE, recycling codes), launch timeline, photography style.
Print collateral brief (1-2 pages per piece)
What it is (flyer, brochure, poster), distribution context (in-hand, mailbox, exhibition), call-to-action, paper preference (matte vs gloss), fold type if applicable, quantity, budget for design and print separately.
Worked example: a bad brief vs a good brief
The bad brief
“Hi, we need a logo for our new restaurant. We want it modern but classy. Budget under £200. Send me some ideas?”
Problems: no business name, no concept of the restaurant, no audience, no examples of what “modern but classy” means, no timeline, no deliverables list. This forces the designer to guess on six dimensions; revisions will be expensive.
The good brief
“Restaurant name: Salt & Stone. Modern Mediterranean small plates, opening Soho in October 2026. Target: 28-45 year-old professionals, average spend £45 pp. Closest UK references: Bocca di Lupo (style), Honest Burgers (brand voice). Want a wordmark + small icon, must work on a small awning sign and Deliveroo logo. Avoid: classical Italian olive branches, terracotta colour palettes. Need vector files (AI/EPS/SVG) + raster (PNG/JPG) + brand guidelines mini-doc (1-2 pages). Budget £799. Deadline: brand approval by 5 September, signage artwork ready by 19 September.”
Why it works: every decision the designer needs is answered upfront. The designer can produce relevant first concepts because the constraints are specified.
What if you genuinely don’t know what you want?
Solve for clarity on what the business is, not what the logo looks like
Most clients who “don’t know what they want” know exactly what their business is. Write the brief about the business (its customers, its competition, its position) and trust the designer to choose the visual direction.
Use reference brands as Rosetta stones
Saying “I want to look like a young Toast” tells a designer more than 1,000 words of adjectives. Pick 3-5 reference brands you admire and one your designer can use as a structural template.
Embrace constrained choices
If you can’t choose between options, give the designer 2-3 “definitely not” examples. Eliminating wrong directions is often easier than identifying right ones.
Designer red flags to watch for in the brief response
No follow-up questions
A designer who reads your 1-page brief and produces concepts without asking anything has either (a) skipped reading it or (b) is too inexperienced to know what to ask. Expect 3-8 clarifying questions before concepts begin.
“Show us mood boards” before discovery
Mood boards from you, the client, can actively harm a project. The designer’s mood boards (after they’ve absorbed the brief) are valuable; your Pinterest board often locks in the wrong direction.
Promising exact deliverables without seeing reference work
A designer who guarantees “you’ll love it” without seeing examples of what you’ve historically liked is selling, not designing.
Get the UK Branding Budget Worksheet (free)
A printable worksheet: decide what your brand needs now and price it against fixed published prices and the IPO trademark fee.
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Sources & Further Reading
- The Double Diamond design process, Design Council UK
- Agile delivery, Service Manual, gov.uk
- Intellectual Property Office, gov.uk
Frequently asked questions
What information should a logo or brand design brief include? +
At minimum: business name, what you sell, target customer, key competitors, 3 to 5 reference brands you admire (and why), colours/styles you do not want, deadline, budget, and the files you need at the end.
How long should a design brief be? +
For a logo project: half a page to two pages is the sweet spot. For full brand identity: 2 to 4 pages. Briefs longer than 5 pages usually contain mostly noise; everything important fits on two pages.
Should I include reference logos or competitor brands in my brief? +
Yes: 3 to 5 examples each of brands you admire and brands you actively do not want to look like. Reference brands speed up the discovery phase by 50 to 70% and reduce the chance of misaligned first concepts.
What if I don't really know what I want from the design? +
That's normal. Tell the designer your business model, target customer and 3 brands you respect, then trust them to lead the visual direction. The best UK designers prefer a clear brief about your business over your guess at the visuals.
Should I tell the designer my budget? +
Yes. A budget lets the designer suggest what is realistic, from a single logo to a full identity, instead of guessing. With a fixed-price service the price is already set, so the brief can focus on your business and customers.
