How to brief a design agency so you get what you wanted
The six things that should be in every design brief, and the three that quietly cause every revision round nobody budgeted for.
- Most revision rounds come from an unstated assumption, not from bad design.
- Naming three things you dislike is more useful than naming ten things you like.
- Approving direction before pixels saves more money than any other single decision.
- If you cannot describe who the design is for, the brief is not ready.
Revisions are a briefing failure, usually
When a project goes to round four, the cause is almost never that the designer cannot design. It is that something obvious to you was never said out loud.
The founder’s spouse hates green. There is a competitor you must not resemble. The board has seen a mockup and formed expectations. None of this was in the brief, all of it shapes the outcome.
The six things that must be in it
**Who it is for.** Not demographics. A sentence describing a real person and what they are trying to do when they encounter this.
**What it must achieve.** One measurable thing. ‘Look more premium’ is not measurable. ‘Justify a 30% price increase against our nearest competitor’ is.
**What exists already.** Every asset, guideline and constraint. Including the ones you are embarrassed by.
**Three things you dislike.** More useful than what you like. Likes are vague; dislikes are specific and they prevent whole directions being wasted.
**Who approves.** Named. If it is a committee, say so upfront so the process can be designed around it.
**Hard constraints.** Print sizes, platform limits, legal requirements, accessibility standards. Anything that cannot flex.
The three that cause revision spirals
**Unstated stakeholders.** Someone who was not in the kickoff sees round two and has opinions. Every one of their comments becomes a revision nobody scoped.
**Reference images without reasoning.** Sending five links you like tells the designer nothing unless you say what you like about each. Otherwise they guess, and half the time they guess the wrong attribute.
**Changing the objective mid-project.** Starting with ‘make it premium’ and moving to ‘make it approachable’ is not a revision. It is a new brief and it should be priced as one.
Approve direction before pixels
The cheapest place to change your mind is at the outline or wireframe stage. The most expensive is after the design is finished and detailed.
Any agency worth hiring will show you three flat directions before refining one. Look at them properly, choose deliberately, and be honest if none of them work — that is a much better conversation at week one than at week four.
A test for whether your brief is ready
Read it back and ask: could two different designers read this and produce work with the same objective? If yes, it is ready. If they could produce anything at all, it is not a brief, it is a wish.
Send it before the kickoff call rather than during. Written first, discussed second. That order produces better questions.
Want this done for you?
We do this work every day across 24 services. Free audit, findings yours either way.
Related questions
How long should a design brief be?
One page for a logo, two to three for a full identity or website. Longer than that and it is usually a specification document with the actual brief buried inside it.
Should I include a budget?
Yes. Withholding it wastes everyone’s time. An agency that knows your budget can tell you what is achievable within it rather than proposing something you will reject.
What if I do not know what I want?
Say that explicitly. It is a legitimate starting point and it changes the process — you need a discovery phase first, which should be scoped and priced separately.
