How important is the brief?

For a designer or brand consultant, the brief is good as long as it is short and to the point. However, when it goes beyond 2-3 pages and doesn’t clearly establish objectives, deliverables and timeline, it’s already completely useless, a long chatter meant to justify the existence of the “writer” without any efficiency.

Of course, it may happen that the brief cannot be drafted with the correct parameters due to the client’s lack of experience or the absence of a marketing specialist within the organization. It is natural that some companies, especially those beginning their journey, do not have this expertise at their disposal. In this case, delegating the writing of the brief to the designer or consultant is normal and will be done together with the client based on the initial discussions and analysis.

A brief must have only one characteristic: to be effective, i.e. to ensure the realization of the project by specifying all the necessary data without ambiguity. Thus, it becomes useful both for the client and the designer or consultant. The client benefits from a unit of measurement of the project and the designer or consultant from the precise delimitation of his services.
I am writing this because, in recent years, I have found that the brief does not exist or is ambiguous, confusing, or inconsistent with the expectations stated verbally before or after the project.

We at @Branzas consider it an ethical obligation of our profession to help draft our clients’ project briefs before any creative stage begins.

Regarding the deliverables and the direction in which the project should go, wording like “do as you know best”, “do your magic”, and “it would be better to” leaves room for many ambiguities and does no one any good. On the contrary, time is unnecessarily wasted on futile discussions and explorations.

The brief is crucial.