- Setting the tone
- Questions before ideas
- Summarize the business
- Summarize the project
- Who decides?
- Give your client time and space
- But maintain the focus
- Research with purpose
- Assembling the design brief
- Tapping into something special
- Nature's poetry
- Field research that makes a difference
- Bringing the details to life
- Giving form to language
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Assembling the design brief
Documenting the information can mean taking notes during a meeting, recording phone or video calls, editing an email exchange, or distilling a conversation down to its most essential parts. Designers need to be editors, too. It’s wise to create a succinct, accessible document that you and your client can refer to throughout the project. Share a copy with everyone involved, and keep one close at hand for follow-up meetings.
On your end, the brief helps keep your designs focused. I’m sure I’m not the only designer who’s chased a few far-fetched ideas now and then. That doesn’t mean the brief can’t include a level of playfulness. As Luke Tonge explained, “The privilege of being a designer is that essentially we get to play with stuff for our jobs – drawing, making, building. […] We’re not saying there isn’t rigor and seriousness needed, that there aren’t KPIs, and shareholders. But I think when there is a focus on design being very results driven, we risk dumbing down and dulling down design, and losing the joy, and the magic and the excitement.”3 Relevance, of course, is crucial, and a solid brief helps keep your work on track.
With this foundation in place, let’s look at how others have gathered insight from their clients and used it to create effective, lasting results.
