Creative brief template

A creative brief is the short document that tells a designer, agency or team what to make and why. A good brief is one or two pages. It says who the work is for, what it must make them feel or do, and what is fixed. Most weak creative work starts with a weak brief.

The sections

• Background: the business and why this work is needed now.
• Objective: the single thing the work must achieve.
• Audience: who they are, what they believe now, and what they want.
• Insight: the human truth the work is built on.
• Proposition: the one thing to say.
• Reasons to believe: the facts that make the proposition credible.
• Tone and brand codes: colours, type, imagery and words that are fixed.
• Deliverables: formats, sizes and quantities.
• Mandatories: legal lines, logos, anything that must appear.
• Budget and timing, and who approves.

A filled example (fictional brand)

The brand below is invented for illustration.

Background: a small studio sells hand-thrown ceramics online. Most sales are gifts.

Objective: make the range feel like the considered gift, not the safe one.

Audience: people buying for someone whose taste they respect, and worried about getting it wrong.

Insight: a gift is a statement about the giver as much as the receiver.

Proposition: the gift that shows you were paying attention.

Reasons to believe: each piece is made by hand, so no two are the same.

Tone and codes: quiet, warm, unhurried. Natural light, hands in frame, no stock props.

Deliverables: six product stills, one 15-second reel, an offer-page layout.

Common mistakes

• Several objectives. Pick one.
• An audience described only by age and income.
• A proposition that is really a list.
• No fixed brand codes, so every round starts again.

Brief a designer on Brandium

In Build mode, Brandium writes the brand system first: positioning, codes, name, look and offer. You leave with a designer brief, stills and a live mock of a landing or offer page. Psychology comes first. Brandium will not invent a customer, a category or a number you did not give it. New accounts get 150 free credits.