Design Brief Template
A Design Brief acts as a bridge between a business and a design agency. Use this template to identify the competitive landscape and your company’s relation to it.
Trusted by 65M+ users and leading companies
About the Design Brief template
What is a Design Brief?
A design brief acts as a bridge between a business and a design agency. The document allows businesses to communicate their needs and desires to a design agency or team. When a business decides to hire a design agency, someone on the marketing team will typically write the design brief. A comprehensive design brief helps guide the design process, communicating what the designer needs to do and elaborating on any constraints.
How to use the Design Brief template
Businesses can expect to have numerous interactions with design agencies. Maybe you have hired a design agency to create your website, or build a landing page. Or maybe you have hired them to completely rebrand your site and marketing materials. Regardless of the project’s size, you will need a detailed marketing plan to work effectively with the agency.
Step 1: Start by discussing your goals. What do you want the design agency accomplish? Do you want them to overhaul your website, or design a new logo? Do you know exactly how you want your site to look, or do you want your agency to do some research and present their ideas? Be upfront about all of this information so your agency can start building a foundation for the project.
Step 2: Give your agency a budget and timeline. Design agencies are often juggling many projects at once. To ensure they complete the project on time and according to your preferences, give them a realistic estimate of your resources and time constraints. Are you looking to launch your website before a conference? Are you trying to create a landing page in time for a product launch? Do you have a limited budget to work with? Let your agency know.
This part of the design brief opens a doorway for a conversation with the agency. If your timeline or budget is unrealistic, then they can tell you about it in time for you to make a contingency plan. If your budget is too high or the project is easier than you anticipated, then you can end up saving some time or money. But your agency cannot have these conversations with you if you do not include the information in the brief!
Step 3: Include your target audience. Your design team is going to make different choices depending on the audience you want to reach. For example, a website designed for high schoolers is going to look a lot different from a website designed for CISOs. If you are not sure about your audience, explain who your ideal customer is. It might help to reference your competitors so the agency can do some research.
Step 4: Lay out the scope of the project. To partner with you, the design team needs clear parameters. Do you want a custom logo, or do you want the agency to adapt an existing template or design? Do you want an online store complete with a shopping cart, or do you just want a brochure site with information about your product?
While you’re defining the scope, think about social networking features and blog integration too. This is your chance to create a holistic experience for your customers, audience, or clients. Draw out this experience in the design brief.
Step 5: Show them what materials are available to them. Maybe you already have a bank of stock photos you’re using for your online content, or maybe you have a logo, a brochure, or photos of your product. Giving the design agency a glimpse at these materials can help them gain insight into your company’s aesthetic.
Step 6: Create a style guide. The style guide is like your narrative voice -- but instead of text, your medium is visual. It can be useful to give the design agency examples of websites with styles that speak to your audience. Tell them what color palettes you like and what kind of ambiance you want your audience to experience. Describe the adjectives and emotions you want your customers to associate with your brand.
Step 7: Enumerate a list of do-nots. If there are certain features you do not want on your site, colors or fonts you do not like, or layouts that are ill-suited to your product, then put that in the design brief.
Why write a Design Brief?
Writing a design brief will ensure an effective partnership between your business and your design agency. If you or your business is working with a design agency on any project, regardless of size, then you need to write a design brief. The design brief allows you to provide guidance to the agency so they deliver your project quickly, on time, and according to your specifications. In short, a good design brief can save you and the agency time and money.
When to use the Design Brief template?
Use the Design Brief template any time you’re creating a design brief for a new project. You can use the template to outline the scope of your project, your budget and time constraints, and your preferred style.
Why is the Design Brief important?
The design brief is the foundation of any creative project. A comprehensive design brief can serve as a business plan and source of truth. Throughout the project, your business and the agency can reference the brief to ensure everyone is on track, within budget, and delivering according to your timeline.
Get started with this template right now.
Customer Journey Map Template
Works best for:
Ideation, Mapping, Product Management
A customer journey map (CJM) is a visual representation of your customer’s experience. It allows you to capture the path that a customer follows when they buy a product, sign up for a service, or otherwise interact with your site. Most maps include a specific persona, outlines their customer experience from beginning to end, and captures the potential emotional highs and lows of interacting with the product or service. Use this template to easily create customer journey maps for projects of all kinds.
Ansoff Matrix Template
Works best for:
Leadership, Operations, Strategic Planning
Keep growing. Keep scaling. Keep finding those new opportunities in new markets—and creative new ways to reach customers there. Sound like your approach? Then this template might be a great fit. An Ansoff Matrix (aka, a product or market expansion grid) is broken into four potential growth strategies: Market Penetration, Market Development, Product Development, and Diversification. When you go through each section with your team, you’ll get a clear view of your options going forward and the potential risks and rewards of each.
Stakeholder Mapping Template
Works best for:
Business Management, Mapping, Workflows
A stakeholder map is a type of analysis that allows you to group people by their power and interest. Use this template to organize all of the people who have an interest in your product, project, or idea in a single visual space. This allows you to easily see who can influence your project, and how each person is related to the other. Widely used in project management, stakeholder mapping is typically performed at the beginning of a project. Doing stakeholder mapping early on will help prevent miscommunication, ensure all groups are aligned on the objectives and set expectations about outcomes and results.
Proto Persona Template
Works best for:
UX, UX Research, Product Design
The Proto Persona Template is tailored to capture the essence of hypothetical user segments. It encapsulates key attributes such as user needs, behaviors, and potential pain points. One of its standout benefits is its ability to foster empathy. By visualizing and understanding these preliminary user profiles, design and strategy teams can tap into a deeper connection with their target audience, ensuring that solutions resonate authentically and address genuine needs.
Go-to-Market Strategy Template
Works best for:
Marketing, Desk Research, Strategic Planning
It doesn’t matter how innovative or effective a new product is — if it doesn’t get noticed and adopted by the right audience, the product won’t get off the ground. That’s where your Go-to-Market Strategy comes in. It’s a single resource that houses all of your research, insights, and data, and includes your business plan, target audience, marketing approach, and sales strategy. A GTM is especially important for any startups who grow fast, have to make split-second decisions, and have to be fully in sync.
Scope of Work Template
Works best for:
Project management, Planning
The Scope of Work Template from Miro brings structure, clarity, and efficiency to project planning. It's more than just a template—it's an adaptable and dynamic platform that adapts to your unique project needs. Join thousands of satisfied users and make the Scope of Work Template a part of your project management toolkit.