How To Write A Creative Brief

A great brief will guide the entire creative process and get you where you need to be. A poor brief will incur endless toing and froing – and who needs that? We’ve put together this guide to help you give us clear and detailed information, enabling us to provide the best response possible.
 

First off, we are a curious bunch – tell us about yourself

 

 
We need to get to know you and your business. Give us the lowdown on your company history, core values, brand, size, staff, and locations.
Include a good overview of the services and/or products you provide and tell us about your plans and ambitions. We want to help you reach them.

• Describe your company in a couple of paragraphs.
• Describe the concept, product or service your site will provide.

Your idea should have two elements. Firstly, the functional element i.e. what form it will take and what assets it will consist of, and secondly, a look and feel element i.e. how it will appear visually. Spend some time researching, and come up with some suggestions of how it could work and examples that you like. Imagining what you need and how it will manifest itself will help your creative team to get a better idea of what you mean. By doing this you will have set the scene for your creative team, explaining what sort of functionality and design you’re hoping for.
 

The Why – The project objectives

• Why are you starting this project and what do you want to achieve?
• Where are you now in the process?
• Please provide five key objectives in order of importance.

What success looks like to you 

• How will you measure success? This can be anything from the number of visitors, to bookings or software uptake.
  Knowing what you want to achieve helps to get you there.
• Do you have recent market research from your existing customers? Such as customer surveys, interviews, etc.
• Do you have a Unique Selling Point (USP)? What will help you to help them?
• Please include any statistics you have available.

Who are you talking to? 

 
Do you want to reach other businesses or direct to consumers? Corporate leaders, employees, graduates, holidaymakers, new parents?
Naturally, this will influence absolutely everything from the tone of voice to the look and feel of the project.

• Who is your target audience? The demographic, age, location, occupation.
• Outline any ideas for features you have for your site.
• How do these features support your business goals and the goals of your users?
• What are your biggest challenges or obstacles to success?

Websites / Portals

The Design – Look & Feel

People are coming to your new site for the first time, so how do you want to make them feel? How up to date are your brand guidelines?
What is your appetite for change like? What tone and style do you want to achieve?

Also, tell us about your competition. Who are the best and worst in your field? What’s working for them and what doesn’t?
 

The techy stuff – Features and functionality

• What platform is your current site built on? (e.g. WordPress, Drupal, Joomla)
• Do you want to stay on the same platform or change?
• What are the top five web browsers, platforms and devices used for visiting your website?
• How many site visitors do you normally have in a month?
• What will the domain name for the site be?
• How big is the site? How many pages does it contain?
• What accessibility standards do you require?
• Will the site need to interface with any other site?
• Do you want your customers to buy directly from your site?
• Does your site need back-office integration with third-party systems? If so, which ones?
• Any particular features e.g. enquiry form, video content/news? Blog?
• Would you need any ongoing support and maintenance, including hosting?

Strategy & Content

 
Often overlooked, the content is the devil in disguise that could end up eating a lot of time and resources without clarity from the outset.
Will you just be moving content over from one site to another, or are you in need of a deep clean and fresh content?

• Have you got text and images in place?
• If not, who is going to create and source this content?
• Will you require a content audit?
• Are you looking to rebrand or refresh your branding?
• Will you need help with a communications strategy?

Film/Motion/Character Animation

We realise this might be difficult to estimate without knowing the ins and outs of the art that is motion graphics.
Here we recommend you contacting us directly so that we can guide you. Here are a few pointers to have a think about:

• Do you have a desired length for the video? 30 sec, 60 sec, 90 sec, longer?
• Do you need narration/voice overs?
• What kind of style do you have in mind – 2D, 3D or a hybrid?
• Will your video include character animation? *
• Do you have an idea for the music you would like us to use?
• Do you have some research you’d like us to use for the motion graphic?
• Will you use corporate branding for the look and feel?

* Character animation is a specialised area of the animation process, which involves bringing animated characters to life.
 
 

So, what will it cost?

 
To provide an accurate costing we will need to understand your available budget. A range is a good starting point, if you haven’t (yet) got a set figure. This allows us to carefully plan and ensure value is visible in the right places. It also allows us to tailor our recommendations to your expectations. With no indication of budget – well it really is how long is a piece of string!

Other key factors to bear in mind are ongoing support and maintenance, as well as marketing costs to promote and drive traffic to your content? Have you got a separate budget allocated for this?

With a slightly higher budget, we can spend more time on what we call the Discovery phase, which includes further market research and UX design.
If the budget is more sparse, we need to know what core services are required to achieve a successful ‘version one’ of the site.

 

How long will it take?

 
We understand that you have tight deadlines and that your commission needs to have been in place yesterday. But we need to be realistic.
When are you looking for this to go live? Is your go-live date determined by any business-critical timing such as a product launch or industry event?

Now you know what you need to keep in mind when writing a creative brief. The more precise you are, the better answers we are able to give you at an earlier stage. This often saves both time and money in the long run. A win-win for all parties.

I’ve written the brief – Now what?

 
Fantastic! Once you’re happy with your brief, please send it to New Business Manager emma.depolnay@wearetilt.com or jon.malyon@wearetilt.com . They will review the brief and contact you to arrange the next step. We look forward to hearing from you.