At this stage, no one can really do much harm. We are just informing people something is about to happen, and their input and expertise is welcomed. Once this first team meeting has been conducted, the co-owners can go off to begin actually drafting the design brief.
This first draft will be presented at the second team meeting. It is important for me to repeat: There is no single, off-the-shelf format for a design brief. Some organizations prefer a brief that is narrative in nature. Others prefer bulleted lists.
Many incorporate graphs, charts, or illustrations. Others do not. However, the key ingredients for the content of a perfect design brief are the same no matter how you format the final document. There may also be some ingredients not mentioned here which you shall decide should be included. At the end of the day, each organization needs to develop its own format and list of ingredients.
As mentioned in chapter 2, the co-owners actually create the first draft of the design brief and determine the design brief format that will be used. If the whole design brief project team tries to sit. Following the first design brief project team meeting, the co-owners create the first draft of the brief in the particular format they have chosen, recognizing that there will undoubtedly be some missing information.
The first draft will be reviewed with the whole design brief project team at the second previously scheduled team meeting. This will allow team members to add their inputs and supply missing information. The goal is to have a final, unanimously agreed upon design brief at the end of the second meeting.
This process will also ensure that all critical information is indeed supplied for the design brief and that the information is current, accurate, and truly useful to everyone involved.
Of course, changes and additions might have to be made to the design brief document throughout the course of the project. This is inevitable. But by getting unanimous agreement on the essential content of the design brief prior to starting the design process, these inevitable changes can be kept to a minimum.
Project Overview and Background This section must clearly articulate the scope of the project, the business needs and objectives of the project, the desired outcomes, and ownership of the project.
We all recognize that many people, especially those not involved with the day-to-day work on the project, will not read an entire design brief. Therefore, this first section will also need to serve as an executive summary of the project. It needs to be rich in information without being too long or labored. It will need some careful construction. Here is an example, in the narrative format, for a major design project: The current company portfolio reflects a series of different visual treatments that were created at various points in time to fulfill a number of business objectives and strategies.
As a result, the portfolio lacks visual cohesiveness and clarity. This exacerbates target audience confusion within the complicated and already cluttered global marketplace for these products. Design principles and strategy for future new products must also be established within this umbrella strategy. The ultimate design solution will consistently incorporate company branding elements, achieve a cohesive visual appearance across the line, and clearly distinguish the different products within this umbrella strategy.
Note that in the first paragraph, just five sentences communicate a great deal of information. The first sentence states the problem: over time, the visual appearance of our company and its products has become fragmented. The second sentence tells us the result of this fragmentation: the portfolio lacks visual cohesiveness and clarity. The next sentence gives us more necessary information especially for designers : the customer is confused because the industry is complicated, cluttered, and global.
Next, the writers give us some insight to the business objectives of this project and a suggested solution: to redesign. The writers also tucked in a word of advice on how to avoid the need to do this again in the foreseeable future. Finally, in the next paragraph, some mandatory elements are articulated for this redesign project.
As a designer, my head would be spinning with some initial thoughts. There will be multiple designs that all need to work together. Today there is clutter and confusion, so my concepts will need to be clear, straightforward, and simple to comprehend.
I will need to develop an umbrella visual strategy. Each product will have to include some element that distinguishes it from the other products. For the nondesign management people who will be reading this design brief, these two paragraphs firmly establish a business reasonfor-being for this effort. Also, these paragraphs communicate this need in terms nondesign business partners can understand.
Retest all three with target audience. The project has been scheduled to be complete by date. The budget for this project has been set at amount. I am using this example because it is actually very good. However, I do believe there is some missing information in the phase section, which I will deal with in some detail later. Finally, in this one-page background section, the writers identified the project completion date, budget, co-owners, and design brief project team members: Project owners shall be name , vice president of marketing, and name , strategic design director.
Design brief project team members will include: names of each of the team members. For many people not directly involved in the day-to-day execution of the project, this single page was as far as they read. It contained the essential information they needed.
Particularly important was that accountability for the success or failure of this project was clearly established, and that the key stakeholders were also identified by name. It was clear to anyone and everyone what they were doing, why they were doing it, and who had accountability.
This first section may actually be one of the most difficult to write. It must be rich with information, yet succinct enough to serve as the executive summary. In my experience of over three decades of developing design briefs, this section was one of two that took the longest time to write, and was the subject of the most debate among the design brief project team at the meeting when the brief was finalized and approved. However, it will have so many uses later that it is well worth the time and effort to get it correct now, before design work begins.
Perhaps a couple of examples will help. This differentiated them from the competition. You could eat and be entertained. Your children could get rid of some excess energy in the play parks.
It was a strategy that worked well for the company for many years. It became a category leader. If you simply thought the company was about hamburgers, your design concepts would be very limited. There are other categories that are equally important to define. Of course they are. They need to design and build airplanes that airline companies want to buy.
The airlines want reliability, capacity for specific. But at the end of the day, commercial airplanes are only useful if passengers requiring transportation want to ride in them. These passengers do not perceive airplanes as machines. They want safe, comfortable, fast transportation. So, in this case there are actually categories.
One is the aircraft industry. Another is the airline industry, and a third is the transportation industry. This discussion of category is often overlooked in design briefs. It really is essential. Once your design team has a thorough and complete understanding of the category or categories the company is involved in, much of this material becomes essentially boilerplate.
It is essential that the category review section includes information about the competition as well as about your company. The key is to very clearly articulate a comprehensive overview of current company positioning in the marketplace. How well are they selling now? How long have they been in existence? What equity does each product have in the marketplace?
Is this product or service scheduled for replacement any time soon? How profitable is this product? Many marketing executives and designers! I strongly disagree.
It is essential information to help me focus on possible design directions. Be as specific and detailed as possible. My group was asked to design a package for a new consumer health and beauty aid product. Unfortunately, when we presented our design solution for approval, it was quickly rejected.
The product was going to be promoted by distributing free sample sizes in home delivery of local newspapers—a fact we had not been aware of and neglected to even ask about. The sample sizes were quite small so that they would fit in the newspaper bags, and our design just would not work on the scale of a free-sample size. We had to start all over again, this time keeping the various product sizes in mind. The cost of implementing the design solution would seriously affect the ultimate price that had to be charged for the product.
Designers need to know everything possible about pricing and promotion techniques prior to beginning development of creative concepts. Do the same thing for the key competitors. What are the most significant differences in those perceptions? How important are they? For example, I did some work for a company that was more than years old. It was an industry leader. Then a new start-up company emerged and became a key competitor. The new company presented itself as modern, up-to-date, leading-edge, and reliable.
The key question, of course, was, How much of the somewhat old, well-established brand equity should we leverage in meeting this new competitor head on? Do we move toward a more contemporary visual approach, or stay with the tried-and-true? This was not an insignificant—or easy—discussion. But it was an essential discussion to have prior to beginning any design exploration. How might these trends affect this project? For example, several years ago, when I designed for the health and beauty aids category, shampoo products were a key source of revenue for the company.
The trend had been for shampoos to have a color—predominately green or amber. This trend, of course, influenced our color palettes for projects. And then the trend shifted. Now, clear is a difficult element to deal with in a color palette!
Obviously, all sorts of category or industry trends will influence design solutions in a major way. Is it price? Environmental correctness? Or, the business strategy may be driven by acquisition, partnerships, or alliances. Whatever this business strategy is, the design function.
Target Audience Review In the hundreds of design briefs that I have reviewed, the target audience review is the most often understated section of a design brief. Too often, the audience is actually described in just a few words. What kind of women eighteen to thirty? Where do they live? What level of education do they have?
What are their interests? Young mothers? Mature mothers? These overly simple target audience descriptions tell me nothing useful about the people I am designing for.
If there is a genuine business need for a design project and a desired outcome, then I need to know precisely who I am designing for. Therefore, it becomes essential to describe all target audiences as completely as possible in the design brief.
Pay particular attention to national, cultural, regional, and gender differences, especially for global offerings. Just exactly who will be looking at and responding to your design? Earlier, I described my habit of visiting customers on a regular basis in order to get to know and understand them in greater depth.
If, for some reason, this practice of visiting your target audience regularly is not practical in your design group, then you must rely on input from people who do know the target audience from firsthand experience.
Designers must forge strong relationships with those people who regularly come into contact with the target audience s. Also, keep in mind there are usually multiple audiences—not just one. Going back to my aircraft manufacturer example, designers must understand the various levels of target audiences. First, the aircraft has to be attractive to the airlines that will purchase the airplanes.
Next, the airplanes will have to be attractive to prospective airline passengers, as well as to the crews who fly the planes. These passengers are male and female, business and leisure travelers, young and old. Each of the target audience groups has very different needs, and designers have to understand all of these needs. Global offerings are even more difficult. At one point, I had the opportunity to speak with some designers from a major greeting card company in North America. They were explaining the complexity of designing greeting cards for various parts of the continent.
For example, Christmas cards in New England need to look quite different from those that people will purchase in Arizona. To meet this challenge, the company routinely sent designers to visit all regions of the North American continent. The objective was for the designers to experience firsthand the visual preferences, traditions, and tastes of these various regions.
It was the only way the company could ensure that its design staff was creating appropriate designs for each audience. Now, a greeting card company is highly dependent on design. In effect, it is their product. So the investment in this practice makes good business sense.
Other companies may not see it that way, so you may have to explore other ways to get regional target audience data. A comprehensive target audience description is absolutely critical. Company Portfolio The company portfolio is particularly vital when an external design agency is working on a project for a business. However, it is also a valuable section for in-house design groups.
Once again, this is one of those sections of a design brief that initially may take some time to develop, but once created, it can become boilerplate that is inserted into all subsequent design briefs.
It should be reviewed fairly often, and updated when necessary. This section describes the company or enterprise and its activities as completely as possible. Just what are all the elements that make up the organization? How critical are each of these various elements to the project being described in the design brief? The founders contributed a great deal of money from their profits, and provided a variety of services, to a wide range of charities and worthy causes.
In fact, this was a key element of their business philosophy and strategy. If the organization uses a monolithic brand strategy, using a single master brand for all of its offerings—as, for example, IBM has traditionally employed—that monolithic brand strategy needs to be reinforced and clearly articulated in the design brief. On the other hand, if the company employs a branded strategy in which each product or service is branded separately, then the unique attributes of that brand would need to be included in the brief.
Many companies employ this strategy so that they can actually compete with themselves. There are also companies that utilize an endorsed branding strategy. General Motors is one example. They have several brands—Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac—each with its own brand identities and positioning but all presented as a GM product. This is a typical example of a tiered approach. While each of its brands has distinctive attributes that must be conveyed visually, the master GM brand remains the same for all sub-brands.
Therefore, the challenge is to effectively differentiate Cadillac from Chevrolet, but to also consistently present the GM master brand and all that it stands for. Finally, there are companies that utilize some of each of the above.
If you were asked to partner in a design project for Oral B, you should confirm what part, if any, the parent brand, Gillette, needs to play in the design solution.
This particular section, along with several other sections in a comprehensive design brief, can be a valuable tool for initiating very important and meaningful discussions among your design staff, as well as with your nondesign business partners.
Having these kinds of discussions prior to beginning the design process often leads to real inspiration for enhanced creativity. Business Objectives and Design Strategy In my experience, the business objectives section has probably been the most important section of a design brief. Yet it is also the one section that is most often left out! For a design solution to be truly effective, it must solve the problem.
If there is a problem, and a solution is required, then it follows that not only must the problem be clearly stated, but the business objectives of the solution also have to be clearly articulated.
Once there is a clear understanding of the business problem and its objectives, then—and only then—can a coherent design strategy be developed. In the first section of the design brief, the project overview and background, we laid the groundwork for the business objectives.
Now is the time not only to expand that discussion, but also to formulate a plan of attack, a strategy, for approaching the design process. All of the key stakeholders in a project need to be in agreement with this section. It will also become a key ingredient in preparing your final presentation of a design solution for approval, and acceptance. As previously stated, you will undoubtedly want to develop your own format for a design brief, but as a starting point, let me share with you the format I used for this section for many years.
The column on the right was mine under the same ground rules. Please take note: At this point I am talking about a design strategy, a direction, rather than describing very specific design concepts. The design concepts will ultimately emerge from the strategy. Once a draft of both lists was completed, my partner and I would review and discuss each item one by one. To be candid, this would. Once my partner and I had agreed to the content and substance in each column, we reviewed it with the entire design brief project team to get their buy-in, or unanimous agreement with the brief.
There are many advantages to this process. First and foremost, it helps to speed the whole process up, believe it or not! While it is true that this section of the brief may take a little longer than others to create, it does provide focus and clarity for the design concept development stage, and thus compresses the time for this important phase. It also nearly completely eliminates a lot of misunderstandings throughout the entire process.
And misunderstanding meetings use up a lot of valuable time! In addition, this section is an educational tool for both parties. The designer or design manager is able to get a better understanding of the business problem, and the folks with the problem to be solved through design get a better understanding of design process and concept development.
What happens if, during the early stages of the design process— the concept development stages—the designer s suddenly come up with a brilliant and highly creative concept that does not fit with the agreed-upon strategy in the brief?
No problem! In a sense, a design brief—like many other business plans—is a living document. The important point is, if the design brief is very carefully thought through and written, these inevitable changes will be minimized, once again saving valuable time. When either there is no design brief, or a brief is created with minimal information, that is when valuable creative time is lost in the race to make a deadline.
Project Scope, Time Line, and Budget: The Phases This part of the design brief provides critical detail to the road map to success we are creating. It ensures that everyone involved has a clear understanding of, and is in agreement with, every aspect phase of the project. It also serves as a wonderful device for the design team to educate its business partners on design process. It can often lead to successful negotiations to get more time and budget for the project as well.
Creating this section provides the design team manager with the opportunity to break a design project down into its various discrete parts. By doing this, your partner begins to understand some of the detail involved in executing the project. Once we understand things better, we are usually able to appreciate them more!
Too often the design profession seems to keep its processes a carefully guarded secret. As a result, many nondesign business people tend to think we just go in the back room, get creative, and come out with something that looks really good.
By sitting with your partner and working through the project in phases, you will have the opportunity to educate your partner and to get acceptance for your time and budget requirements in order to complete the project successfully. The critical thing is to be sure the description of the phase is complete and understandable to everyone involved.
The best way to proceed is to first create the ideal scenario with your partner. You will recall our earlier example from the project overview and background section of the brief. In that real example, six phases were summarized.
This brief summary is fine for that particular overview section. But now is the time to add more detail to the description of each phase. But now is the time to expand the discussion of this phase with your partner:. If not, precisely who will gather this material?
How long will that take? Do we know who they are? Who will provide these examples? How long will it take for them to provide these materials?
What criteria should we apply to this audit? Who will they be presented to? How long will this part of the audit process take? What are the start and end dates for this phase? If so, who will those people be? I have often found that in this example of an audit process, my partners are blown away by the scope, effort, time, and expense that is involved.
When you complete the analysis for each additional phase of the project with your partner and add up the costs, the total will likely show that more time and money are required than originally planned. Your business partner will probably be trembling.
What is occurring is a businesslike discussion of what is really required to achieve a specific business goal. The process is educational for your partner because he or she is a participant. It is very hard to disagree with something you have helped to create in the first place! As you do more and more of these with various partners, each begins to have a greater appreciation for the needs of designers and the design process.
Once again, we have a win-win scenario. The Last Three Phases As previously stated, the phases are largely determined by the specific project and also by the type of design involved. For example, a product design industrial design project might involve a variety of engineering elements and model building that would not be part of a project to design a print piece, such as a brochure.
Therefore, the industrial design project will probably have additional phases not found in a design brief for a print project. But I strongly recommend that all design projects, no matter what the specifics, include the following three final phases: 1 final approval of project, 2 implementation, and 3 measurement metrics. Clearly, every project will have to face a final approval phase.
The brief should include details about this phase. When will the approval meeting occur? Who will ultimately have final approval authority? Who will make the approval presentation? What is the budget for creating the approval presentation? Author Peter L.
Publisher Allworth. Release 01 July Subjects Art Nonfiction. Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. May 28, Andrew rated it liked it Shelves: business. I came to this book looking for advice on how to produce better creative briefs, and I wasn't disappointed.
But once you get past the nuts and bolts aspects of writing a complete and useful brief, much of the book's attention is devoted to how one proves design's worth in a corporate environment. I have the good fortune of working for a small studio where design is not constantly battling to have a seat at the table.
But most of our clients are large corporations, so it was interesting to get a I came to this book looking for advice on how to produce better creative briefs, and I wasn't disappointed. But most of our clients are large corporations, so it was interesting to get a sense of how design is often viewed in their ranks. There is plenty of good information to be found in this book, but most of it is geared towards designers working in a corporate environment.
Freelancers and employees of small studios will need to tailor the lessons of the book somewhat to be applicable to their setting. There is at least one universal tenet that every reader can walk away from this book with: "Design is a problem solving discipline", not a strictly artistic one. Pretty disposable book, specially if you not a 'in-house' Designer.
The first half can get you one or two tips on how to sharpen your briefings, but aside from that, the book circles on ambiguous arguments on how Designers should not expose their work as mere artistic services to the client, while the author surely seems to believe that artistic endowment is exactly what design is all about.
Like if we were to hid such trait from the other mangers at the company. The author seems to know this vi Pretty disposable book, specially if you not a 'in-house' Designer. The author seems to know this view is wrong, but fails to know what is exactly that design do, so his arguments end up getting really empty in some points of the book.
It also feels a little dated, considered how the mindset of many CEO's and Business Managers changed after de Apple shares boom and the widespread of Design Thinking in the first half of the 's. Jul 11, Tracy rated it really liked it. Great book, very helpful. It's not just about how to write a great design brief but also about the importance of showing how Design adds value and is a strategic partner in meeting business objectives.
For many years I hunted in vain for a good guide to the preparation of a written design brief. Peter L. Phillips is an internationally recognized expert in managing and developing corporate design and brand identity strategies. He has also conducted numerous seminars, lectures and articles for the Design Management Institute on these subjects.
Organized chronologically, and with the novice in mind, the book starts with an examination of what a design brief is and who is responsible for creating it. Who owns the brief. While many of the examples used are for specific disciplines within the broad category of design, such as packaging or industrial design, Phillips stresses that the premise is the same for all design.
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