How to write a design brief

This is a free guide for small businesses, public services and anyone commissioning a designer.

Design briefs are an essential part of the design process. In fact, they mark the beginning of the design process, helping designers understand the business problem they are required to solve and businesses clarify what they need from a design project. Altogether they are vital to achieving an effective design solution says Peter L Phillips who's spent 30 years as a corporate design director, learning the business benefits of writing a design brief.

A lot of clients say to me, "We don’t have time to do a brief. How long does the brief take?" And my answer is simply, it saves double the time that you spend on doing it.Peter L Phillips

In this guide to design briefs he shares what he's learnt about:

• What a design brief actually is
• What should be in a design brief
• Who should be involved in writing it
• Making design briefs effective, business focused, problem solving tools
• How businesses or design teams use briefs to understand and overcome challenges
• The lingo used indesign briefs

Watch a video of Peter Phillips talking about a small company that benefitted from writing a design brief

Watch this video of Peter Phillips answering frequently asked questions. One’s about why collaboration works

Peter Philips analyses a brief written by school students for the architects who’d be building their new school