Design brief creation workflow

Turn initial requirements into a draft brief covering functions, metrics, design priorities, and deliverables for internal use or external tendering.

Establish the essentials

State project type, scale, quality or classification, and city, plus whether the brief serves internal designers, a competition, or a tender. These conditions determine appropriate functions and requirements.

Develop the brief

1. Select this Skill and provide known conditions and attachments. Define the intended use.
2. Supply missing scale, positioning, or location information. Keep undecided values open rather than inventing numbers.
3. Review standards and design points. Distinguish fixed client requirements, retrieved requirements, and suggestions. Explain project-specific adjustments.
4. Check agreement between functions, areas, and deliverables. External briefs usually need fuller background, scope, and submission requirements; internal briefs can focus on essential controls.
5. Choose text-only or illustrated output. Define each page's purpose before adding base images or concepts; imagery must not replace requirements.

Review and continue

Check sources for every number, unit, and constraint, removing unsupported certainty. Keep client decisions explicitly open. When scale or positioning changes, update dependent functions, areas, and provisions, not just the cover.

This creates a new draft. To understand an existing formal brief, use Brief interpretation. Revise chapters and select export separately; generated content is not automatically a formally issued document.

Skill basics