How to Brief a Brand Designer Without Wasting Your Budget
A bad brief burns budget. I've seen it.
Client: "We need a fresh look." Me: "Who's the audience? What's the one thing you want them to feel?" Silence. Then we spend two rounds discovering what should have been in the brief. That's not the designer's fault. It's the brief's.
A good brief has: who you are, who it's for, what you want them to do or feel, what you're not, and 2–3 references (brands or styles) that are close but not right. Not a novel. One page. If you can't fill that, you're not ready to hire. You're ready for a strategy conversation first.
The Friction Moment
I once got a brief that said "modern and professional." Every brand wants that. I asked for three brands they admired and three they didn't. That unlocked it. They didn't want "modern." They wanted "confident, minimal, no playfulness." One sentence. Saved a full round of revisions. So: give your designer something to push against. Not only "we like it" but "we don't want to look like X."
What a brand identity system is so you know what you're buying. How much brand identity costs so you scope. Branding describes what I deliver. Contact when you have a brief—or need help writing one. Process is how we run the project.
