Brand Builder: The Importance of the Creative Brief

Branding can make or break a business. No matter how much effort is pored into a business plan, no matter how intricate or SEO-friendly your website is, if your branding is off-target, you’ll never be reaching the maximum level of customer connection you could achieve with a well-rounded, audience-tailored brand. A good way to sum this up is:
If you brand it, they will come.

But where do I start defining/redefining my brand?

The first tool I send clients looking for logo or identity design/branding services is a creative brief. This is a set of questions put together that every business, be it a multinational corporation or an individual-owned startup, can use as guidelines for brand development. The most important part of the brief is question number 6- the three adjectives you’d use to describe your brand.

These brand descriptor words should be conveyed in every single piece of communications released by your business. Is your brand bubbly and friendly? Your colors should probably be bright and saturated and your social media imagery should portray positive, welcoming scenes. Are you a business-to-business company that strives to maintain an air of authority and strict professionalism? Then you probably want to avoid the bright garish colors mentioned above, and stick to imagery that’s toned-down and muted in nature. The list goes on and on. These words can be applied to logo design, website design and copy, brand messaging, and more. If you’re having trouble coming up with brand adjectives or don’t know where to begin, see below for some examples I see frequently from clients.

elegant, modern, upscale, fun, knowledgeable, imaginative, professional, luxurious, educational, trendy, adventurous, cheerful, earthy, playful, quirky, conservative

Normally, this brief is only shared with my clients, but the need for branding guidance in current-day conditions is overwhelming. And with some extra downtime, even a well-established business could benefit from an exercise like this. I’ve included the creative brief for all girlboss readers as a freebie below. The PDF is fillable when opened with Adobe Acrobat.