The Groundwork
How to brief a brand designer so you get the brand you meant
Published 1 July 2026
Most brand projects that go wrong were doomed at the brief. Not because the founder briefed too little, but because she briefed the wrong things, colours she likes, fonts she's seen, a competitor she wants to look like. A designer can execute all of that perfectly and still hand back a brand that doesn't work.
Here's what to put in a brief instead, and the order to put it in.
Start with the decision your buyer makes
Before any visual preference, write down the moment someone chooses you. Where are they, what are they comparing you against and what almost stops them saying yes. A wedding florist loses clients at a different moment than a bookkeeper does. The brand's job is to win that moment, so the brief has to name it.
If you can't describe the moment, that's not a failure. It's the first thing a good designer will help you find, and saying so in the brief is far more useful than guessing.
Describe the feeling, not the artefact
Write how you want a stranger to feel three seconds after landing on your site. Reassured. Excited. In safe hands. Slightly outclassed. These are design directions, and they're far more precise than naming a font.
Then list the feelings you'd consider a failure. Cheap. Corporate. Sweet. Interchangeable. Negative space in a brief is as useful as positive space in a logo.
Bring evidence, not instructions
Real enquiry emails. The compliment clients repeat. The misunderstanding you keep correcting. What people say you do versus what you actually sell. That gap is usually where the strategy lives, and no designer can see it without you.
The one question that saves the project: ask your last three clients why they nearly didn't hire you. Put the answers in the brief verbatim.
Leave room to be surprised
The brief sets the destination, not the route. If you specify every visual decision up front, you're paying a professional to trace your guesses. State the outcome you need, hand over the evidence and judge the work against the brief you wrote, not against a picture in your head.
A brief full of fonts is a guess. A brief full of evidence is a strategy waiting to be designed.
If you're at the briefing stage now, this is exactly where our Signature Brand Design process begins, with your evidence on the table before anything is drawn.