The first meeting with a client, is in retrospect the most important moment in a project. This is the time to find out the vital information that your work will be built upon. One tool we use to capture this data is a creative briefing document.

A creative brief is a questionnaire for your client, that covers all the information you are going to require to be able to go ahead and begin site architecture, mood boards & wire-framing (if necessary). It is also very useful to have this information recorded, as at any time you will be able to go back and look at what your client’s initial views were, allowing you to ensure your work stays focused.

If you take a look at our contact page you will see we have our own creative brief document for download. We offer this as it allows the opportunity to cut out a lot of questions from the initial meeting, and progress a client’s project quicker. You can also ask these questions on your first meeting, which would work the same.

Like any document, creative briefs follow a typical format. Below we have listed the various sections of our own, and spoken on how they can be helpful to finding information.

1) Contact Information

This section provides an overview of your client, including contact information you will require at any stage of the project.

2) Project Overview

The project overview allows for you to find information related to the projects overall goals. We ask such questions as:

• When are you aiming to launch this project?
• What action(s) would you like the user to perform when visiting your site (i.e. get in contact)?

Now we know what the client is looking to get out of this project and when they want it completed, we can start focusing on the direction we are going to take this project in.

3) Site Redesign (if this is a redesign)

We include this section to the creative brief after the project overview, for the reason that if this is going to be a website redesign, then the client must have a reason for this – which will relate to the project overview. We ask such questions as:

• What is the reason behind your redesign (i.e. update the look or draw in a new audience)?
• What areas of the current site do you feel are unsuccessful and why?

This allows us to again, build up an image of where the client is hoping to take their project and allows us to focus on this from the very beginning, ensuring all hours spent on the project will be successful.

4) Website Design (Look & Feel)

Now that we know where the client wishes to take their project, we can ask them how they would like the website to look. Some designers may work towards a website that fits the current web trends. However, a website design should in fact support the content & target audience the website has.

• Please describe how you vision the overall design as best as you can (i.e. clean, professional, minimalist or dark, distressed)
• List websites you dislike and give a brief reason why for each
• List any competitors web addresses and how you set your company apart from these

You may wonder why we ask what websites the client dislikes. However, from previous experience we have found it is a lot easier to say what you don’t like, rather than what you do! Therefore this helps to alienate any design styles the client does not want to take their project too, which is very useful.

This is also the time to ask them to list any competitor web addresses. We place this question here instead of the project overview, as some clients may not like talking about competitors, and it fits in here nicely while not drawing too much attention.

5) Content

By now you should be building up an image of where your project is going & already have ideas as to where to take your design. But before you do this, you need to know the content your client wishes to hold on site.

• Will the content of the website require to be updated on a regular basis?
• Is there any existing content that needs to be included in the site?

These are two of the questions we ask. The first targets whether they will be requiring a CMS system or not which will effect hosting, while the second will let us know if there is any current content we can take a look which may suggest where to take our first designs.

6) Technology

In the last section to our creative brief we ask:

• Are there any features you would like to see built-in to the site (i.e. AJAX, streaming video)?
• Does your website require an e-commerce solution or an online store?

These questions offer answers that will not affect your project this early, however will help you to understand the scale your client wishes to take the project and also whether you need to spend some time looking at e-Commerce solutions or specific AJAX scripts that the client may find fitting to the website.

Conclusion

Overall, the aim of a creative brief is to assess the client’s motivations and requirements out of their website, helping you see a clear direction to take the website in, which the client will be happy to reach. It’s all about hitting your client’s targets for their project, and a creative brief is definitely the best way to do so.

If you haven’t used this method before, we recommend you take a look at our creative brief and then devise your own. You may come up with other questions you’d like to ask, but that’s the point. We are sure it will help you focus your efforts on future projects in a positive way :).

Further reading:

• Design View / Andy Rutledge - Design Questions
• The Creative Brief: 10 Steps to a Better Project