So I thought I would start with both a frustration and some advise.
I am constantly bombarded with customers (which I am thankful for) looking for my studio to execute design work. However, they rarely really know what it is they are looking for, and have assumed that a particular piece of media (usually because a competitor has just acquired one) is going to solve all their marketing problems. This makes the situation quite tough, and I spend allot of time trying to work out with them what it is they are trying to achieve, and whether their request is actually going to work for them. I have however, in moments of weakness (maybe after too many all nighters), agree on executing certain projects without a defined brief; let me tell you from experience, that is not a good idea, and here's why.
A brief will help you agree on a grounds or foundation for your design. The brief outlines certain 'assumptions' that you will make as you craft your elegant design solution to your client's problem. The larger and more financially critical the exercise, the deeper your understanding needs to be. It will also set the expectations or benchmarks for success; you will have a better grasp of what you are signing up for, and they will have an objective outlook on the returns. So unless your client walks in with a well formed plan, and an understanding of what a successful execution looks like, you will need to hand hold them through the process of creating a brief.
A creative brief should be no longer than a few pages. It is important that discursive paragraphs are avoided and that information is kept organized, preferably in bullet form. The document needs to touch on a few critical areas:
- Overview - A description of general project information, goals, measurable objectives & deliverables.
- Primary Audience - Discuss exactly who this deliverable is targeting. Try to collect as much information about the audience as possible; their relationship with the product/service/company, their age, gender and habits. Then try to understand how your design will impact their lives and how they will use or interact with it? Discuss your audience preference, and what can and can't be said to them.
- Tone & Image - Understand how your client wants to be perceived by the audience. Will this best be achieved by being funny, casual, formal, reserved or bold? Is your audience liberal, or conservative and is the message appropriate for their belief system? Does your client have any visual ideas or examples of design work that they aspire to?
- Messages, Features, benefits & Values - Create a prioritized list of messages your client wants to send, with the first being 'the one thing that you would want your target to understand'. Be sure to answer the question of how these features and or facts add value to the end user's life.
- Budget & Schedule - Be sure to know whether the budget for the design you are about to undertake has been approved. You then also need to understand when your delivery must reach the target audience to create the most impact. This will ultimately help you determine with the client a schedule for delivery.
- Process - It is important that you agree on who will be your point of contact in your clients organization, what the review/approval process will be, and who will sign off on the final delivery.
- Miscellaneous - Depending on the kind of work that you are executing there may be specific questions you need answered. Try to role play through the design process so that you can expose any requirements upfront, and have them addressed in the brief.
Now there are a few ways to do this. You could perhaps call a meeting with your client (make sure you are talking to the decision makers), and quiz them on the topics I outlined above. The other way is to prepare a questionnaire and sample creative brief, then pass them on to the client and ask for them to deliver a similar document.
Now the fun part :) This is a billable item. At the end of the day, if you are approached by a client who has a non-existent, broken, or incomplete brief you should be able to charge for the hours you spend helping them do house keeping. But how? Well the argument goes like this:
"Look I can execute what you are asking for, no guarantees it will be a good investment, OR, I can help you formulate a good definition of your problem and framework for a solution. You can then decide whether I am the right person to do the work. I will charge a small fee for guiding you through this process, and assure you that you will be well equipped to find the right person to deliver."
Now that sounds silly, what if they originally wanted a website, and you come to the conclusion that a simple flyer will do the trick? If you had executed the website, and failed to quench your clients expectation, you have an unhappy customer, broken trust and no return customer. On the other hand, educate the client, lose the website, execute the flyer that delivers expectations, and win their trust. I promise that a customers trust is worth more than any short term gains, and is the building block of all successful relationships.
