How to optimize your creative briefing
Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2025 6:26 am
Tight deadlines. Special requests. Endless exchanges of information. On any given day, creatives overcome a number of obstacles. But the biggest of all is a lack of information.
No one knows this better than creative teams at growing companies . The more requests you get, the harder it is to find the missing pieces. Our creative forebears solved this dilemma (or so they thought) back in the 1960s when the creative brief was born. Creative briefs are meant to be the first step in the creative process.
When used effectively, their value goes beyond informing and initiating work. afghanistan phone number data Creative briefs also help automate assignments based on team experience and relate project complexity to create more accurate schedules, among many other things.
Unfortunately, the Rolling Stones were right: you can’t always have what you want. The formal application process is often ignored or dismissed. Other departments bypass creative briefs in favor of seeding half-baked ideas via email or chat. When they finally get around to filling out a brief, the application is vague and missing several critical details. The designer is left filling in the blanks or starts a back-and-forth with the applicant. That’s when it all falls apart.
Before we explain how to optimize your creative brief, let's take a moment to understand what can go wrong when it doesn't contain enough detail. While there's no way to know what has caused these design disasters, we're ready to venture some answers.
What could go wrong?
How to optimize your creative briefing
It seemed like it was okay, a simple ad. But it went wrong because the applicant did not mention the existence of the window…Why-The_Hell_Wont_People_Fill_Out_My_Creative_Brief_2Wait, are those handcuffs or hearts? Who knows what instructions the designer of this police training logo received?Why_The_Hell_Wont_People_Fill_Out_My_Creative_Brief_3Nobody said that user experience design was easy. In fact, without a good creative brief, things can get pretty complicated...Why_Wont_People_Fill_Out_My_Creative_Brief_4Game of Thrones is great. But George RR Martin’s website is far from it. The designer of the specific elements on the website probably didn’t know they were going to be used in combination. On the same page. To everyone’s delight. A good creative brief helps you avoid mistakes like these, but getting all the information you need isn’t always easy. It requires a two-pronged strategic approach.
Steps to optimize your creative briefing
Desktop image promo promo
1. Identify what information you need
While it's tempting to immediately point the finger at applicants, creative teams need to take a hard look at their intake forms and processes.
David Mekerishvili, head of Wrike’s design team, remembers the days when his team was tasked with creating illustrations for new blog posts. The requester would fill out a creative brief and define the target audience as “web visitors.” “When my team would submit the final designs, we were told that they weren’t flashy or ostentatious enough for the intended audience,” David says.
The blog was aimed at small, independent creative agencies, but David and his team assumed it was for internal marketing agents within the company – two very different audiences. “I realised that our application form was responsible for causing such confusion,” David admits. “To prevent this from happening again, I refined our creative brief with more specific questions about the target audience.
I also changed these fields from optional to required. Does your creative brief ask the right questions? Do you have the right people and processes in place to execute creative requests? To be sure, consider the 4 Ws: who, what, when and why.Why_The_Hell_Wont_People_Fill_Out_My_Creative_Brief_5Who: Each member of the creative team should have a defined role and set of responsibilities. Who handles illustrations and who handles motion graphics? Who is the lead designer for sales presentations or print materials?
Clearly establish who is responsible for each key aspect of effectively distributing, scheduling, and completing projects. It’s also important to identify project dependencies and key stakeholders. This eliminates a lot of rework and push and pull between team members. There are many strategies that help define roles and responsibilities, such as RACI, DACI, or CAIRO . Integrating one of these models into your creative brief is a great way to ensure the right people are properly involved from the start.
What: To optimize your creative brief, it's important to keep in mind that you can't use one-size-fits-all. You should create templates for different types of projects, such as campaigns, ebooks, videos, etc. This way, you'll be sure to ask the most relevant and specific questions possible.
“To ensure we gather all the necessary information without asking unnecessary questions, my team uses Wrike’s dynamic request forms ,” says David. “The questions change based on the information the requester provides while filling out the brief. For example, if the requester is a marketing representative and the project is a website, they will be asked different questions than if they are a sales representative asking for a presentation.”
No one knows this better than creative teams at growing companies . The more requests you get, the harder it is to find the missing pieces. Our creative forebears solved this dilemma (or so they thought) back in the 1960s when the creative brief was born. Creative briefs are meant to be the first step in the creative process.
When used effectively, their value goes beyond informing and initiating work. afghanistan phone number data Creative briefs also help automate assignments based on team experience and relate project complexity to create more accurate schedules, among many other things.
Unfortunately, the Rolling Stones were right: you can’t always have what you want. The formal application process is often ignored or dismissed. Other departments bypass creative briefs in favor of seeding half-baked ideas via email or chat. When they finally get around to filling out a brief, the application is vague and missing several critical details. The designer is left filling in the blanks or starts a back-and-forth with the applicant. That’s when it all falls apart.
Before we explain how to optimize your creative brief, let's take a moment to understand what can go wrong when it doesn't contain enough detail. While there's no way to know what has caused these design disasters, we're ready to venture some answers.
What could go wrong?
How to optimize your creative briefing
It seemed like it was okay, a simple ad. But it went wrong because the applicant did not mention the existence of the window…Why-The_Hell_Wont_People_Fill_Out_My_Creative_Brief_2Wait, are those handcuffs or hearts? Who knows what instructions the designer of this police training logo received?Why_The_Hell_Wont_People_Fill_Out_My_Creative_Brief_3Nobody said that user experience design was easy. In fact, without a good creative brief, things can get pretty complicated...Why_Wont_People_Fill_Out_My_Creative_Brief_4Game of Thrones is great. But George RR Martin’s website is far from it. The designer of the specific elements on the website probably didn’t know they were going to be used in combination. On the same page. To everyone’s delight. A good creative brief helps you avoid mistakes like these, but getting all the information you need isn’t always easy. It requires a two-pronged strategic approach.
Steps to optimize your creative briefing
Desktop image promo promo
1. Identify what information you need
While it's tempting to immediately point the finger at applicants, creative teams need to take a hard look at their intake forms and processes.
David Mekerishvili, head of Wrike’s design team, remembers the days when his team was tasked with creating illustrations for new blog posts. The requester would fill out a creative brief and define the target audience as “web visitors.” “When my team would submit the final designs, we were told that they weren’t flashy or ostentatious enough for the intended audience,” David says.
The blog was aimed at small, independent creative agencies, but David and his team assumed it was for internal marketing agents within the company – two very different audiences. “I realised that our application form was responsible for causing such confusion,” David admits. “To prevent this from happening again, I refined our creative brief with more specific questions about the target audience.
I also changed these fields from optional to required. Does your creative brief ask the right questions? Do you have the right people and processes in place to execute creative requests? To be sure, consider the 4 Ws: who, what, when and why.Why_The_Hell_Wont_People_Fill_Out_My_Creative_Brief_5Who: Each member of the creative team should have a defined role and set of responsibilities. Who handles illustrations and who handles motion graphics? Who is the lead designer for sales presentations or print materials?
Clearly establish who is responsible for each key aspect of effectively distributing, scheduling, and completing projects. It’s also important to identify project dependencies and key stakeholders. This eliminates a lot of rework and push and pull between team members. There are many strategies that help define roles and responsibilities, such as RACI, DACI, or CAIRO . Integrating one of these models into your creative brief is a great way to ensure the right people are properly involved from the start.
What: To optimize your creative brief, it's important to keep in mind that you can't use one-size-fits-all. You should create templates for different types of projects, such as campaigns, ebooks, videos, etc. This way, you'll be sure to ask the most relevant and specific questions possible.
“To ensure we gather all the necessary information without asking unnecessary questions, my team uses Wrike’s dynamic request forms ,” says David. “The questions change based on the information the requester provides while filling out the brief. For example, if the requester is a marketing representative and the project is a website, they will be asked different questions than if they are a sales representative asking for a presentation.”