How to write a brief for identity development
Why "we want blue and minimalist" is a dead-end formulation
At Gromov Branding, we have repeatedly encountered the situation where a client writes their favorite color in the brief, but then chooses a palette at the presentation that has nothing to do with that color. It's not that the person doesn't know what they want. The issue is that the question "what color do you like" is not about the brand at all — it's about personal taste, which is irrelevant to the task. Color, font, logo shape — these are the results of design work, not input data for it. To specify them in the brief is the same as ordering a house from an architect by naming the brand of brick instead of describing how people should live in that house.
Two other methods work to describe visual vision, and both translate subjective feeling into objective coordinates for the designer.
- The brand as a person. If the company were a person — what would its appearance, manner of speaking, gestures be? Is it restrained or expressive, does it wear a strict suit or a worn-out jacket, does it speak quietly or interrupt the speaker?
- Association with a well-known brand archetype. Volvo reads as reliability, BMW — as audacity and thrill, Mercedes — as a claim to supremacy. Telling a designer 'we want to be like Volvo, but younger' is more useful than a list of five shades of blue.
This is complemented by a third tool that almost no clients consciously use — a moodboard. A selection of 3–4 images united by a common mood, with a brief explanation of what exactly is common in them, gives the designer more information than a paragraph of adjectives. A picture does not allow one to hide behind the vague 'stylish' — it either resonates with the task or it does not.
Questions about brand character, which must be in the brief
A good brief does not ask "what logo do you want". It asks about character — and does so through specific, almost game-like formulations that make the client describe the feeling rather than a ready-made solution.
| Question | What it brings to the surface |
|---|---|
| If the brand were a car, what make would it be? | Positioning: status, speed, reliability, accessibility |
| What is the texture of the brand — glossy, matte, rough? | Tactile feeling that is transferred to paper, packaging, website |
| Does the brand speak loudly or softly? | Tone of communication and density of visual language |
| What clothes would a brand-person wear? | Level of strictness, conservatism, or freedom of form |
| What sound is associated with the brand — the hum of an engine or a quiet click? | Direction for sound identity, if needed |
The question about texture is not just decoration in the questionnaire. Describing a brand as "glossy", "matte", or "rough" gives a designer a better direction than trying to describe the final visual result with words like "premium" or "expensive". Material is the feeling before it becomes color.
Brief schema that actually reduces the number of revisions
According to the AIGA Design Business Survey 2023, a detailed structured brief produces 43% fewer rounds of revisions and 67% higher client satisfaction compared to a vague technical document. The difference is not in the volume of text, but in the fact that the brief works on three different levels, and each level answers a specific question.
- Strategic level. Who we are, for whom, how we differ from competitors, what role the brand plays in business in three years. Without this, the designer works blind — beautifully, but in the wrong direction.
- Emotional level. What feelings the brand should evoke upon first contact. Here, the images of 'a person' and associations with other brands work — that is, what was mentioned above.
- Visual level. Moodboards, references, textures, restrictions (for example, mandatory use of the corporate color of the group of companies). This is the final, not the initial step of the brief.
The mistake of most briefs is that they begin and end at the third level. The client sends references and colors, skipping strategy and emotion, and then is surprised why the designer 'did not understand the task.' He simply did not receive it.
There is also an organizational aspect to reducing revisions: the more questions a designer asks during an interview with the client, the fewer revisions will be needed later. A live conversation, even in the format of voice messages, gives the designer more nuances than a written questionnaire — intonation, pauses, slips of the tongue often reveal more about the brand than the formulations themselves.
Mistakes that turn the brief into a source of rework
Here are typical formulations that seem quite specific to the client, but provide the designer with zero useful information — and how they should be reformulated.
| How it is written in the brief | Why this doesn't work | How it should be |
|---|---|---|
| «I want something stylish and modern» | «Stylish» is different for everyone; the designer guesses | 3-4 reference + description of what they have in common |
| «The logo should be blue» | Color is a solution, not input data | «The brand feels like Volvo — reliable, calm» |
| «Make it look nice, you know better» | The designer works without evaluation criteria for the result | Description of the brand's character, audience, competitors |
| «I don't want it to look like competitor X» | Negative benchmark without positive alternative | Indicate specifically how the competitor is unsuitable and what to replace it with |
A client who sends a one-line brief such as 'make us a logo, budget is such-and-such, deadline is such-and-such' usually receives at least three rounds of revisions — simply because the designer has to guess all three levels of the brief at once, starting with the strategy.
Brief and technical specification — different documents for different stages
Confusion between brief and technical specification is a common cause of conflicts at the start of a project. These are not two names for the same document, but two tools with different tasks.
| Parameter | Brief | Terms of Reference |
|---|---|---|
| When it is compiled | Before work begins, as a starting point | After the brief and initial research, before production of mockups |
| Who writes | The client, often with the help of a designer-interviewer | Designer or project manager on the agency side |
| What it describes | Feeling, character, strategy, semantic limitations | Specific formats, media, technical requirements, package contents |
| Level of detail | Qualitative — images, associations, tone | Quantitative — sizes, file formats, list of applications |
A brief without a specification is when a designer understands the character of the brand, but does not know whether a logo is needed for packaging and in what format to deliver the files. A specification without a brief is the opposite problem: a careful list of formats and media, from which it is not clear at all why the brand should be such and not another. The working scheme — a brief forms the meaning, and a specification fixes it in specific production requirements.
Identity is not only what is seen
Classic brief sections — about the company, audience, and competitors — cover only the visual part of the task. Modern identity increasingly goes beyond the logo and palette: sound signatures, brand jingles, tactile sensations from packaging, even scent in a showroom — all of this is part of the brand image, and all of this also needs to be described in the brief if such media are anticipated in the project. The question 'what sound does the brand have — a quiet click or the rumble of an engine' sounds strange only until you understand that for an audio logo or voice assistant, this is exactly the information that a sound developer needs. A brief that pre-fixes at least a direction for sensory elements saves a separate round of approvals when these media are actually reached in practice.
Why "we want blue and minimalist" is a dead-end formulation
At Gromov Branding, we have repeatedly encountered the situation where a client writes their favorite color in the brief, but then chooses a palette at the presentation that has nothing to do with that color. It's not that the person doesn't know what they want. The issue is that the question "what color do you like" is not about the brand at all — it's about personal taste, which is irrelevant to the task. Color, font, logo shape — these are the results of design work, not input data for it. To specify them in the brief is the same as ordering a house from an architect by naming the brand of brick instead of describing how people should live in that house.
Two other methods work to describe visual vision, and both translate subjective feeling into objective coordinates for the designer.
- The brand as a person. If the company were a person — what would its appearance, manner of speaking, gestures be? Is it restrained or expressive, does it wear a strict suit or a worn-out jacket, does it speak quietly or interrupt the speaker?
- Association with a well-known brand archetype. Volvo reads as reliability, BMW — as audacity and thrill, Mercedes — as a claim to supremacy. Telling a designer 'we want to be like Volvo, but younger' is more useful than a list of five shades of blue.
This is complemented by a third tool that almost no clients consciously use — a moodboard. A selection of 3–4 images united by a common mood, with a brief explanation of what exactly is common in them, gives the designer more information than a paragraph of adjectives. A picture does not allow one to hide behind the vague 'stylish' — it either resonates with the task or it does not.
Questions about brand character, which must be in the brief
A good brief does not ask "what logo do you want". It asks about character — and does so through specific, almost game-like formulations that make the client describe the feeling rather than a ready-made solution.
| Question | What it brings to the surface |
|---|---|
| If the brand were a car, what make would it be? | Positioning: status, speed, reliability, accessibility |
| What is the texture of the brand — glossy, matte, rough? | Tactile feeling that is transferred to paper, packaging, website |
| Does the brand speak loudly or softly? | Tone of communication and density of visual language |
| What clothes would a brand-person wear? | Level of strictness, conservatism, or freedom of form |
| What sound is associated with the brand — the hum of an engine or a quiet click? | Direction for sound identity, if needed |
The question about texture is not just decoration in the questionnaire. Describing a brand as "glossy", "matte", or "rough" gives a designer a better direction than trying to describe the final visual result with words like "premium" or "expensive". Material is the feeling before it becomes color.
Brief schema that actually reduces the number of revisions
According to the AIGA Design Business Survey 2023, a detailed structured brief produces 43% fewer rounds of revisions and 67% higher client satisfaction compared to a vague technical document. The difference is not in the volume of text, but in the fact that the brief works on three different levels, and each level answers a specific question.
- Strategic level. Who we are, for whom, how we differ from competitors, what role the brand plays in business in three years. Without this, the designer works blind — beautifully, but in the wrong direction.
- Emotional level. What feelings the brand should evoke upon first contact. Here, the images of 'a person' and associations with other brands work — that is, what was mentioned above.
- Visual level. Moodboards, references, textures, restrictions (for example, mandatory use of the corporate color of the group of companies). This is the final, not the initial step of the brief.
The mistake of most briefs is that they begin and end at the third level. The client sends references and colors, skipping strategy and emotion, and then is surprised why the designer 'did not understand the task.' He simply did not receive it.
There is also an organizational aspect to reducing revisions: the more questions a designer asks during an interview with the client, the fewer revisions will be needed later. A live conversation, even in the format of voice messages, gives the designer more nuances than a written questionnaire — intonation, pauses, slips of the tongue often reveal more about the brand than the formulations themselves.
Mistakes that turn the brief into a source of rework
Here are typical formulations that seem quite specific to the client, but provide the designer with zero useful information — and how they should be reformulated.
| How it is written in the brief | Why this doesn't work | How it should be |
|---|---|---|
| «I want something stylish and modern» | «Stylish» is different for everyone; the designer guesses | 3-4 reference + description of what they have in common |
| «The logo should be blue» | Color is a solution, not input data | «The brand feels like Volvo — reliable, calm» |
| «Make it look nice, you know better» | The designer works without evaluation criteria for the result | Description of the brand's character, audience, competitors |
| «I don't want it to look like competitor X» | Negative benchmark without positive alternative | Indicate specifically how the competitor is unsuitable and what to replace it with |
A client who sends a one-line brief such as 'make us a logo, budget is such-and-such, deadline is such-and-such' usually receives at least three rounds of revisions — simply because the designer has to guess all three levels of the brief at once, starting with the strategy.
Brief and technical specification — different documents for different stages
Confusion between brief and technical specification is a common cause of conflicts at the start of a project. These are not two names for the same document, but two tools with different tasks.
| Parameter | Brief | Terms of Reference |
|---|---|---|
| When it is compiled | Before work begins, as a starting point | After the brief and initial research, before production of mockups |
| Who writes | The client, often with the help of a designer-interviewer | Designer or project manager on the agency side |
| What it describes | Feeling, character, strategy, semantic limitations | Specific formats, media, technical requirements, package contents |
| Level of detail | Qualitative — images, associations, tone | Quantitative — sizes, file formats, list of applications |
A brief without a specification is when a designer understands the character of the brand, but does not know whether a logo is needed for packaging and in what format to deliver the files. A specification without a brief is the opposite problem: a careful list of formats and media, from which it is not clear at all why the brand should be such and not another. The working scheme — a brief forms the meaning, and a specification fixes it in specific production requirements.
Identity is not only what is seen
Classic brief sections — about the company, audience, and competitors — cover only the visual part of the task. Modern identity increasingly goes beyond the logo and palette: sound signatures, brand jingles, tactile sensations from packaging, even scent in a showroom — all of this is part of the brand image, and all of this also needs to be described in the brief if such media are anticipated in the project. The question 'what sound does the brand have — a quiet click or the rumble of an engine' sounds strange only until you understand that for an audio logo or voice assistant, this is exactly the information that a sound developer needs. A brief that pre-fixes at least a direction for sensory elements saves a separate round of approvals when these media are actually reached in practice.
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