Writing the ultimate briefing
A hands-on guide for clients
We’ve all been there. Someone — a client — wants us to create something for them. Design something, write something, compose something. And, more often than we’d hope, that’s pretty much where the briefing ends. Writing a good briefing seems to be an art on its own. It makes sense. Clients turn to us because we can do something they can’t. So, how can we expect them to know what we need?
Instead of complaining about bad briefings, let’s try to help our clients brief better — for our sake and theirs.
Clients, start here
For a professional creative to attack your task or problem energetically, motivated, and with vigor, your briefing only needs one fundamental ingredient, in a couple of different flavors. That ingredient is restraint. See, a creative problem without restraints is not really a problem. There is nothing to solve if anything goes. Just like a sudoku puzzle without any starting numbers is not worth the effort — there is no challenge — a creative assignment without restraints is not worth working on. Technically speaking, it requires no creativity, making your unrestrained assignment bland and unappealing.
Moreover, without restraints, a task is never finished because there are no requirements to test against. “Fix the…
