A good brief is short, specific and honest about constraints. It gives a studio something to push against.
Start with the problem
“We need a new logo” is a solution. It tells a designer what to produce without telling them why, and without that, every option looks equally defensible. Purple Squirrel came to us with a cartoon squirrel in glasses carrying a briefcase, a mark that was friendly but belonged to a smaller, more casual company than the firm had become. The brief was “keep the squirrel, and give it the polish of a firm that places executives”. That problem statement was specific enough to judge every concept against, so the review was about fit and the first reaction mattered less.
A useful problem statement usually names three things: what the brand looks like today, who that look is failing, and what has changed in the business since the current identity was made. If you can write it in two sentences, you are ready to talk to studios.
Name your audience, and the brands you refuse to resemble
Who has to notice the change first, and which brands do you never want to be mistaken for? Both answers narrow the field faster than any mood board. On The Human Experience Co., the client named its direct competitors outright: MindsOpen and August. The brief asked the identity to “look professional enough for senior executives and human enough to be believed”, and added an explicit instruction that the mark and palette look like nobody on that list. That single line ruled out an entire visual territory (the blue-on-white, geometric-monogram look of management consulting) before we drew a single concept.
Naming a reference point works even when it isn’t a competitor. On Online Speechie, the brief pointed to Lovevery, a children’s brand outside the client’s own category, purely as an example of how colour should feel: warm without being saccharine. The useful question is “show us a brand that gets the tone right, even if it’s outside your market”. It produces a brief you can design against, where “what do you like?” produces a Pinterest board.
If the audience question is hard to answer, the work belongs before the brief. Brand positioning for a rebrand sets out the five decisions to make first.
Give every goal a number
“Make it versatile” tells a designer nothing a size chart wouldn’t tell them better. Purple Squirrel’s brief included this goal word for word: one mark that works on a lanyard, a billboard and a 160-pixel website header, in a palette the client had already chosen. That’s a brief with a built-in test. A designer can hold a concept up against “does this still read at 160 pixels”, which is much harder to do with “feels premium.”
Sovato’s brief did the same thing from a different angle. The company was building a remote-surgery platform in stealth mode, and the requirement was that the mark be slick and contained enough to sit inside a web, mobile and app interface as well as on a slide deck. That constraint (where the mark actually has to live) did more work than any adjective about ambition or sophistication could have.
Where a number isn’t natural, a place is. List the five places the brand will appear most in its first year: a website header, a LinkedIn avatar, a proposal cover, a sign, a product screen. Each one is a test the designer can run on every concept.
Say what must stay
Most rebrands keep something. Purple Squirrel kept the squirrel and its four colours (plum, magenta, indigo and beige). Online Speechie kept its yellow and asked for a wider palette around it. Saying so in the brief saves a round of concepts that throw away something the business is attached to.
Be equally clear about what is open. If the name, the colours and the symbol are all up for discussion, write that down too, because a studio will otherwise assume the cautious version.
Be honest about budget and timeline
A brief without a budget gets a proposal shaped by guesswork. You don’t need an exact figure. A range lets a studio tell you what fits inside it and what doesn’t, which is more useful than three proposals priced for three different projects.
For reference, our brand identity projects start from £2,200 and run 3 to 5 weeks, and brand and web together start from £4,400 and run 7 to 9. The final price comes after a free audit, once the scope is clear. The Services page shows what each one includes, in your local currency.
If there is a fixed date, such as a launch, a fundraise or an event, put it in the brief with the reason. The Human Experience Co. had a client presentation two days after the identity was due, so slide templates became part of the deliverables. Knowing that at the start shaped the plan.
Decide who signs off, and when
Surprises late in a project cost more than any design revision, and most of them come from a sign-off chain nobody agreed to upfront. We run two structured revision rounds on every deliverable, one after the first concepts and one after refinement, and we say so before the first concept exists. Put that same expectation in your own brief: who approves each stage, how many rounds are built in, and what happens if the team can’t agree. It’s a harder conversation to have before a project starts than during one, which is exactly why it belongs in the brief.
Keep the approval group small. A founder plus one or two people who will live with the brand day to day is usually enough. On Sovato, the client asked for mockups of the marks on a deck, letterhead and email signature so the wider team could judge them in use. That’s a good way to bring more people in without adding them to every review.
A one-page brief template
Everything above fits on one page. Use these headings:
- The problem. What the brand looks like now, who it is failing and what has changed.
- The buyer. Job title, company size and the situation that makes them look for you.
- Competitors and references. Brands you must not resemble, and one or two from any market that get the tone right.
- What must stay, and what is open. Name, symbol, colours, typeface.
- Where it has to work. The five most important places, with sizes where you know them.
- Deliverables. Logo files, guideline, templates, website, and anything with a deadline attached.
- Budget range and dates. Including the reason for any fixed date.
- Sign-off. Who approves each stage, and how disagreements get settled.
Send existing material with it: current logo files, the last guideline if there is one, a few screenshots of the brand in use and the competitor list. A studio can read a lot from what you already have.
Mistakes that weaken a brief
- Adjectives without tests. “Modern, bold, trustworthy” could describe almost any company. Pair each adjective with a place or a competitor that shows what you mean.
- A design in disguise. “A blue circle with our initials” decides the answer before the studio has seen the problem. Describe the problem and let the concepts compete.
- Leaving out the awkward facts. A co-founder who loves the old logo, a parent company with its own rules, a website that can’t change for six months. Each one will surface eventually, and it costs less to know on day one.
- Briefing too many people at once. A brief written by committee lists everyone’s preferences and settles none of them.
What a sharp brief actually buys you
The Human Experience Co.’s brief was sharp enough that the entire project, from the first diagnosis call to a finished 10-page guideline with logo files, slide templates and business card layouts, ran in about two weeks. That pace came from the client’s side. They arrived already knowing who they’re for, who they refuse to resemble, and who signs off, so the two weeks went on making the decisions themselves.
If you’d like a second pair of eyes on your brief before you send it anywhere, that’s a good use of the free audit: a 30-minute call with Aidar, followed by a one-page summary with your top three fixes. Book your free audit.
