Briefbox V4 - the countdown begins

Briefbox.me
Aug 9, 2017 · 5 min read

It’s crazy to think that 3 years ago Briefbox was just a small blog with quick practice briefs and a few images for each. It’s also crazy to think that in that time we’ve gone through 3 major product updates adding new features and a better user experience all alongside running our design agency here in the UK.

Our next major update due to launch at the end August is something we’ve been working on in the background for 11 months now. The sheer amount of updates and bug fixes we’ve made see Briefbox entering a whole new level of online design education.

We’re all set to launch the new and improved Briefbox on August 28th! To celebrate the launch we’re offering 25% off for any annual subscription to those who signup here before. Click here to grab the discount code

Here’s what you can expect with Briefbox V4..

Community engagement

One of the main challenges with the current Briefbox site was that our users felt a little lost amongst the giant library of content, with no incentives to communicate and help each other. To overcome this we’ve added a community forum for all our members to discuss briefs, submissions and all things design. We’ve also added incentives and rewards for our most active members with badges, discounts and a new brand ambassador program to encourage our community to engage with each other more. On top of that, we’ve introduced user-to-user following and a ‘liked submissions’ section so you can keep track of what other designers are up to.

Bug fixes and site improvements

Being a small startup, keeping track of any site bugs and issues has been a bit of challenge for us to overcome. With the site going through 3 major updates, the codebase was becoming bloated, so we’ve rebuilt the whole thing from the ground up. With this, we’ve built a completely new submission engine, new full-screen image viewer, complete overhaul of the brief library and a detailed account management section where you can keep track of all your site stats, billing history, and development progress. As Briefbox has always been focused on reinvesting our profits back into the business to better our service, we hope these new additions will have a huge impact on our community’s development.

Guided learning with incentives

Let’s face it, having a massive library of content is great, but it’s hard to work out what to work on and get stuck into. One of the main challenges our community was facing was staying motivated to keep going. To help overcome this, we’ve put a focus on structured learning with our new feature; Curated Series. These are guided mini courses from each discipline, featuring relevant tutorials and designer reviews. You can then earn achievement badges upon completion for your hard work. On top of that, all your existing saved briefs and any new ones you like from the library will be added to your Learning Path, which you can work on separately alongside any series for your own self-development plan.

Better Content

Working on practice briefs is awesome to build up your portfolio but many of our users were asking for tutorials and industry knowledge to help improve their skills and prepare them for the design industry. So… we’ve added a whole new section; The Resource Centre. We’ve got designer reviews where we go into detail about what makes some of the best designers so good at what they do. We’ve got tutorials on everything from ‘how to create perfect mock-ups’ to ‘how to customise fonts to make them your own’. On top of that, we’ve got industry guides, like ‘how to charge clients effectively’, and ‘how to put together winning proposals’. All of this new essential reading and additional tuition is a much-needed section to help you improve your skills and knowledge even further.

And to wrap it up.. Affordability

Getting the pricing right is super important with an online subscription service, especially when many of our community are students or not in full-time work, without much disposable income. At present, we only have one payment tier starting at $9 per month, which gives you access to everything, with feedback also.

We understand that this is a difficult price point to meet and that actually many of our community were not looking for feedback. So we’ve added a cheaper price point; Briefbox Pro, for $6 a month, paid monthly or $4.50 paid annually as $54 . Briefbox Pro gives access to our ever-growing library of content, but without the personalised feedback. We’ve decided to offer this much lower price point and set this as an annual payment to lower admin and payment management and make it easier to keep track of billing, meaning we can spend more time on creating awesome content and looking after our community.

Updates for existing Pro members

For all existing Pro members who are paying $9 monthly, you can stay as you are coninuing to pay monthly, or cancel your account and change your tier to ether Pro or Premium taking advantage of the lower fees if you wish to do so.

We’re all set to launch the new and improved Briefbox on August 28th and to celebrate the launch we’re offering 25% off for any annual subscription to those who signup here before. Click here to grab the discount code

That’s all for now folks, we’ll keep you posted when we flick the switch for the new and improved Briefbox!

Thanks,

Team Briefbox

Briefbox.me

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Practice briefs, tutorials, resources and online learning paths for designers & illustrators

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