NEW Design Brief Template
NEW Design Brief Template
You will have a hard time starting a new project if you don’t have a plan with specifications, aims and realistic targets in terms of budget and timescale.
Putting together a good brief can be the difference between starting a project smoothly or not starting the project at all. By sharing our brand new project brief template, we aim to give you the tools needed to create a cohesive and compelling brief. This template will help you define your goals and objectives, bringing more clarity to you, your team and partners involved in your next project.
About the Template:
Our template is based on our previous experience working on numerous projects where some critical information only came to light later in the project, and we could have done a more efficient job if we had asked some of these pivotal questions early on.
The information required for the brief is relevant for the development of hardware and consumer products in general, but can likely be used for other types of projects too.
Our project brief template is organised into four key areas.
The Service.
Your Product.
Your Users.
Your Profile.
The Service
Defining the service(s) you need is like deciding what ingredients you need for a recipe. You may already have experience with project management or manufacturing, but what ingredients do you need to add for the recipe to be complete? Do you need artistic direction and striking imagery for your website? Or pragmatic development on a key technical feature of your design?
To make it simpler, we have included a list of services that we offer as a design studio as part of the brief template. Additionally, there are areas that we can subcontract using our extensive network of experts.
Defining this helps to understand the scope of the project and how much involvement we need to have in the creative, technical and management aspects of the projects.
Your Product
In this section, start with the big picture and gradually go into more detail, such as defining the specifics of the product and manufacturing budget.
A key question for us is ‘What is the problem you are trying to solve’. This is the most important element when entering a project because it will be the focus of anything we might develop throughout the design and development.
Defining important specifications, such as certifications required and/or elements that need to be considered under the Intellectual Property point of view is really important. Understanding the level of definition you have under the manufacturing investment side can also be a deal breaker.
Your Users
Similarly, if you can define who you are designing for, it will provide us with references for your brand alignment and market positioning.
Your target consumers will affect:
Who you are directly selling to
Your branding
Your marketing strategy/voice
The materials of your product
The aesthetics of your product
Who are your competitors? And how do they interact with their audience?
Your Business
Finally, please talk about how this project fits in with your overall goals and long-term objectives as a business.
Understanding your experience in these types of projects will also help us tailor our service around your needs - providing more or less assistance as required.
To Conclude:
Our design brief template has been designed to help both the client and the design agency to establish key objectives and brand alignment. Without definition, it is impossible to come up with a feasible plan and/or project proposal. While you may not have clarity on every aspect discussed in the template, it may help you to think over each question, and if you still feel unsure, it’s ok to leave it blank.
We hope this has been helpful and you will feel more confident approaching a design brief template in the future. And if you wish to discuss a project, feel free to get in touch via our contact page.
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