Every made-to-order product lives or dies on the brief. Not on the maker's skill — on whether they were told the right things. A good brief takes about four minutes and saves everyone a week.
This applies whether you are briefing us, a freelancer or an agency.
The six things that matter
1. Who it is for — specifically
Not "small business owners". That describes six million people with nothing in common.
"Mobile hairdressers who work alone and take bookings by text" tells the maker the reading level, the tone, the length, the format and half the content. It is the single most useful sentence in any brief.
2. What the reader should be able to do afterwards
Describe the destination, not the document. "They should be able to price a job in under five minutes without underquoting" is a brief. "A pricing guide" is a title.
When the maker knows the destination, they can make a hundred small decisions correctly without asking you about any of them.
3. Tone, in your own words
You do not need design vocabulary. "Warm but not chatty", "no jargon, my clients hate it", "serious — this goes to a board" all work perfectly.
Naming something you like is even better: a book, a brand, a website. Comparison communicates faster than adjectives.
4. What must be in it
The non-negotiables. A section you always include. A step people always miss. A phrase your brand always uses. If it has to be there, say so — a maker cannot infer your must-haves.
5. What must not be in it
The most skipped and most valuable line in any brief. "No calorie counting." "Don't mention pricing." "Nothing that implies medical advice." "Never call them users."
One sentence here prevents an entire round of revisions.
6. Your name and how it is written
Exact capitalisation, any tagline, and the colours if you have them. If you do not have brand colours, say so and let the maker choose — that is one fewer decision for you and it will look better than a colour picked under pressure.
Weak brief, strong brief
Weak: "A meal planner for my followers. Something nice, healthy eating, my brand is Green Life."
Strong: "A four-week meal planner for women in their forties who work full time and cook for a family. Warm, practical, no calorie counting and no weight-loss language anywhere — my audience are done with that. Each week needs a shopping list grouped by supermarket aisle, and a fridge chart they can print. Brand is GREEN LIFE, all caps, sage green if you have a colour. They should be able to shop for the week in one trip and stop deciding what's for dinner at 6pm."
The second one takes ninety seconds longer to write and arrives right the first time.
What you do not need to do
- You do not need to write it well. Bullet points, a voice note transcribed, a mess — all fine. Content beats polish.
- You do not need to know the format. If you are unsure whether it should be a workbook or a checklist, say that. Choosing is part of the job.
- You do not need to design anything. If you have no view on how it looks, saying "no view, make it good" is a legitimate and useful answer.
What happens after you send it
With us: your brief is repeated back to you in the order confirmation, so you can see exactly what was understood before any work starts. If something is genuinely ambiguous you get one short set of questions within a few working hours — never a drip of them, because each round trip costs half a day. Then the finished files arrive within 48 hours, with 14 days of free revisions after that.
If it is not right, the most useful thing you can say is what is wrong, not what to do about it. "The tone is too formal for my audience" gets a better second version than "make it friendlier", because it tells the maker why.