The single biggest reason brand projects fail is a bad brief. Here's exactly how to communicate your vision to a designer so you get the brand you want the first time.
Why Projects Go Wrong
In fifteen years of creative work, we've seen one pattern more than any other cause of project failure: a bad brief.
Not a malicious brief. Not a dishonest brief. Just an incomplete, unclear, or vague brief that leaves a designer guessing.
Guessing designers produce work that misses the mark. Miss the mark often enough and you're looking at expensive revisions, eroded trust, and a brand that doesn't represent you.
Here's how to avoid all of that.
What a Good Brief Includes
1. The Business Overview
Not just what you do — what you're trying to achieve. Where are you now? Where are you trying to go? What's the business challenge that this design project is helping to solve?
2. The Target Audience
Be specific. Not "25–54 year old professionals" but "financial advisors at mid-size firms in Johannesburg who are frustrated with generic tech solutions and value their time above all else."
The more specific you are, the better the designer can make decisions with your audience in mind.
3. Your Competitors
List 3–5 competitors. What do their brands look like? What works? What doesn't? Where's the gap you can occupy?
4. Brand Personality in Adjectives
List 5 adjectives that describe your brand as if it were a person. Confident, warm, innovative, straightforward, premium.
Then list 5 adjectives that describe your brand opposites — what you are NOT. Corporate, cold, complicated, cheap, aggressive.
5. Examples You Love and Hate
Brands you admire (and why). Brands that feel wrong for you (and why). The 'why' is more important than the examples.
6. Deliverables Required
Be explicit. Logo in which formats? How many colour versions? Do you need business cards, letterhead, social templates, presentation decks, vehicle branding, signage?
7. Practical Constraints
- Budget and timeline
- Existing brand elements that must be retained
- Technical requirements (does the logo need to embroider? Work as a favicon? Appear on dark uniforms?)
- Sign-off process (who has final approval?)
8. What Success Looks Like
How will you evaluate the work? What does a successful outcome look like to you?
What NOT to Include in a Brief
- Prescriptive design directions ("I want the logo to be circular with a gradient...") — this closes down creative options before exploration
- Mood board images without explanation of what you like about them
- Contradictory inputs without prioritisation
- Feedback from too many stakeholders before the brief is agreed
The Brief as a Relationship Document
A good brief isn't just a document — it's the foundation of a collaborative relationship. The best project outcomes happen when client and designer are aligned on goals before design begins.
At UNION Design, we run discovery workshops to develop the brief together. This collaborative process produces better outcomes than any emailed brief.
Book a discovery session to start your project the right way.
