What a Good Design Brief Actually Contains
Most briefs describe a deliverable: five pages, a logo, a set of screens. That tells me what to invoice for and almost nothing about what to make.
The useful ones describe decisions — the ones already made, and the ones still open.
The Five Things I Ask For
- Who is this for, specifically? Not a demographic. A person with a situation and a reason to be here at 9am.
- What has to be true for this to be a success? If nobody can answer, the project has no finish line and it will not get one later.
- What is already decided? Brand, stack, deadline, the thing the founder will never approve. Constraints are a gift.
- What has been tried? The graveyard is usually more informative than the wishlist.
- Who signs it off? One name. If there are three, that is the actual project risk.
A brief is not a description of the work. It is a record of what we agreed before anyone got attached to a solution.
The Part Everyone Skips
Write down what is explicitly out of scope. Not to be defensive — to be clear. Half of scope creep is not greed, it is two people holding different pictures of the same sentence.
If you cannot write the brief in one page, the project is not one project.