Providing a good brief to your graphic designer is going to save a lot of time. Having a clear and concise brief saves both yours and your designers time, because it means less emails going back and forth with those questions they are bound to ask to get more details from you.
A lot of the time, when the brief doesn’t include any of the details the designer needs to know, they would normally go back to their clients asking for more information, which is personalised and specific to their design job. I have found a lot of the clients I work with now, who are predominantly female entrepreneurs within the coaching and consulting industry are brilliant at providing a good brief which makes things a lot easier and much more streamlined.
So what kinds of information do you need to include in a good brief to your graphic designer?
The Basics
Firstly, they need to know what it is you need designing. This could be a logo, leaflet design, business card design, workbook, blog graphic/s, social media graphic/s for Instagram posts etc.
Next is the content. Does the item you need designing require copy and images? If so, now would be the time to provide these. I would recommend supplying the copy in a word document and images separately as jpegs. Supplying images within a word document for a design drops the quality of those images and takes up more of the designers time to sort them out. If you’re not sure what imagery to use, it’s at this point you could ask your graphic designer if they can source some images for you, but provide a description of the types of images you would like to be used.
Lastly, let’s talk logo files and brand guidelines. If you’re working with a graphic designer who you’ve never worked with before, they’re going to need a copy of your logo files, including EPS files so they have vector files of your logo. They will also need to see a copy of your brand guidelines (if you have any), so they can see how your logo should be used and any fonts they need to sort out so what they design for you is ‘on brand’.
Design for Print
If you’re wanting an item to be designed for print, such as leaflets, business cards, posters, gift vouchers etc. then more information is required. Let’s use the example of a leaflet for the purpose of this blog:
• Size – what size would you like your leaflet to be?
• Print – is your leaflet going to be double or single sided?
And depending on whether your graphic designer offers print as a service or they work closely with a printer, they will also need to know:
• How many leaflets you’d like printing
• The weight of stock you’d like your leaflets to be printed on
• The print finish – does you print require any special finishing, such as variable data, lamination, embossing, foiling, the list goes on.
Digital Design
If you’re asking for some digital designs to be created, such as a freebie (lead magnet) – workbook, worksheet, checklist, ebook etc. then the first thing you need to tell your designer is whether you’d like them to be interactive or not. This means, would you like your clients to be able to type directly into the PDF, which requires your designer to add interactive field boxes, check boxes etc. to the design. Are there any links or email addresses you’d like to be clickable?
For social media graphics, make sure you let your designer know which platform you’d like these to be for – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest and whether they’re for regular posts, banners or stories.
Purpose of the Design
It’s worthwhile letting your graphic designer know what the purpose of the design is. So, for example if it’s a leaflet design, what’s the purpose of that leaflet and how is it going to be used. Is it going to be used in a leaflet drop, or handed out at an exhibition, or to be used in a leaflet holder. Knowing this means your graphic designer can design what you need with its purpose in mind.
The same for the digital designs as well. Knowing the purpose of the design and what it’s being used for means your designer can choose how to design the item in such a way so that it works for you and your purpose. This could mean putting extra emphasis on certain parts of the copy, or making sure there is a clear call to action.
Dream Customers
Lastly, it’s really important to let your designer know (again, especially if you’ve never worked with them before), who your dream customers are, because they can then design what you require with your dream customers in mind, making sure it’s going to appeal to them.
Let me know if you have found this helpful, especially when creating your next brief for your graphic designer.