Before&After: Design From a Creative Brief

The creative brief is the blueprint for the project. It is a collaboration of designer and client. It includes a project overview, goals, messages, audience description, budget, schedule, and so on. The act of writing all this down means that everyone has talked through and agreed on what the design is to embody. This 15-page article from issue 49 of Before&After Magazine highlights this beautiful logo as a textbook lesson in how to design for a client—and work to a shared, creative vision.

Once the project is done, the creative brief provides the measure by which to judge the outcome. Keep in mind that many goals—“professional,” for example—are subjective, and that the client gets a vote.

© John McWade/Before&After Magazine, courtesy of Gaye Anne McWade.