Hiring a designer should be very little work on your part, right? Right. Clients tend to have little interest in being heavily involved in the design process. They are busy people and have work to do and companies to run. They’ve hired a designer so they can avoid doing extra work. So why the hassle of a creative brief, and is it really necessary?

Let’s say you’ve hired me to rebrand your company. You’ve signed a contract and put down a retainer. The next step is the creative brief. The creative brief is a questionnaire that explores your business goals, project parameters, and what you are looking to achieve through the work for which you’ve hired me. This helps with narrowing down a concept, and the general look and feel of your new brand. This is an essential part of the creative process. You’re invested in your company. It’s also your job to be invested in your brand.

WHY CAN’T YOU JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT?
That’s exactly what you’re doing when you fill out the creative brief. If you were to only give me a few key words and nothing else, some of my design decisions would be difficult. If you’re rebranding to launch a new product, your new branding should support the launch of the new product (but the new product should not define your brand). For example: in 2010, Continental Airlines merged with United Airlines. United Rebranded to reflect this merger by incorporating the globe symbol into their new branding. Now imagine for a moment if the two companies united as one (get it?!), but the branding was simply an update to the then-current United logo? Or perhaps a past United logo from a time when Continental didn’t exist? What message would that send? This is the kind of information I cover in my brief. If I don’t know how important the merger is or bits about the histories of each company, you could end up paying for a rebrand that gives you some bad PR. This is why an in-depth survey of your business is necessary.

ABOVE: Logo designs that used an in-depth creative brief.

IT’S WORTH YOUR MONEY
To elaborate on the previous point, the more I know about your business, the better. If I don’t have the right information about your goals or why you are rebranding, I could steer your brand in the wrong direction and actually end up working against your goals. Knowing exactly what you want saves you time and money. After all, most creative professionals charge after so many revisions. You are responsible for your brand. Invest in it wisely.

IT HELPS YOU DETERMINE WHAT YOU WANT
I have worked with several clients who really didn’t know what they wanted. They were of the mindset, “I’ll know what I want when I see it.” This is an unproductive way to work through a design project. It leaves the client frustrated and the designer to take shots in the dark. Your brand is worth more than a guessing game. If you start the process not knowing exactly what you want, I would say that most clients do. That’s why we have the brief. It gets you to think about your goals and your vision for your company. If you’ve filled out the brief correctly and given the right information, your designer should be able to come up with something that suits your needs. If you don’t know exactly what you want, that’s fine. Let’s work through that together.

A NECESSARY EVIL
From the client’s perspective, the brief is often considered a necessary evil. It takes time away from the things they actually want to be doing. When you work with me, it is the most intensive part of the process and it comes at the very beginning. After that, your only job is to communicate. Inconvenient as it may be, its the best way for me to give you what you’re paying for. A happy client is a client who feels they got what they paid for, but there’s no discount for not being as invested in your company as the people you hire. If you want to feel like you got what you paid for, don’t cut corners. I’m here to work with you, not for you.