We've received thousands of project briefs over the years. The ones that lead to great work share a set of qualities that have nothing to do with how detailed they are. Some of the best briefs we've ever received were a single page. Some of the worst were 40-page documents that answered every question except the important ones.
Start With Outcomes, Not Outputs
The most common mistake in a design brief is describing what you want built without explaining why. 'We need a new website' is not a brief. 'We're losing leads because our current site doesn't communicate our expertise to enterprise buyers' is a brief.
Agencies do their best work when they understand the problem you're trying to solve. Give us the business context. What changes after this project? How will you know it worked? What's at stake if it doesn't?
Be Honest About Constraints
Budget, timeline, internal approval processes, legacy systems that must be integrated — these constraints shape what's possible. Many clients hide them, fearing that revealing a budget will invite a quote that matches it exactly, or that mentioning timeline pressure will lead to corners being cut.
Good agencies use constraints to make better decisions, not worse ones. Tell us what you're working with. We'll tell you honestly what's achievable within those parameters — and where we'd push back.
Show Us What Good Looks Like
References are gold. Not because we'll copy them, but because they reveal taste and expectations in ways that words often can't. Show us three websites you admire and three you don't, and explain briefly why for each. That's more useful to a designer than a paragraph of adjectives.
The same goes for brand references, tone of voice examples, competitor work you respect or want to differentiate from. Visual and tonal references compress the alignment process dramatically.
Define Who You're Designing For
The more specifically you can describe your audience, the better the work will be. Not 'business professionals' — but 'operations managers at manufacturing businesses with 50-200 employees who are evaluating software for the first time.' The specificity changes everything: the language we use, the visual language we choose, the information hierarchy we build.
If you have existing customer research, personas, or even anecdotal knowledge about who actually buys from you and why — share all of it.
A great brief isn't long. It's honest, specific, and outcomes-focused. It tells us the business problem, the audience, the constraints, and what success looks like. Everything else we can figure out together.