The creative brief
What this is. The creative brief is the document every Workhorse project is measured against. It says what the work has to do, who it is for, and the one thing it should say. We write it after the kickoff, from your answers to the kickoff questions and what we learn in discovery. You sign off on it before any design starts.
How to use it. Each section says what it is for and shows a filled-in example from Meaning Layer, a research library and set of tools for studying design through meaning. Write your own answer under it, in a few plain sentences. Anything you are guessing gets a question mark, and every question mark goes on the list at the end.
1. Summary
The whole brief in one sentence: who we want to reach, what is true about them today, what we want them to do, and the idea that will get them there. We write it last, once the rest of the brief is settled, and put it first.
Example. Reach working designers who learned the tools but never the history of their field, who lose arguments in reviews because they cannot say why a design is right, and get them tracing the ideas behind their work, by giving them a library and research tools that connect those ideas to their sources and to each other, across centuries and cultures.
2. Background
What the company does, how it got here, and why this project is happening now. Stick to facts a new person on the team would need on their first day.
Example. Meaning Layer is a research library and classroom started by Abe Garcia, a designer and design educator, for studying design through meaning. It brings the past into design work: art and texts from psychology, mythology, theology and the history of the craft, from museums like the Met and the Art Institute of Chicago, with a permanent address on every passage. Its tools find connections and patterns between works across time and place, and keep each connection beside the text with its evidence. University courses run on it this semester. It has readers but no customers and no price, and this project is about finding its first audience that would pay.
3. Objectives
The three things the work has to achieve, in order of importance, and how we will know each one happened.
Example. (1) Choose the first audience and show they would sign up. (2) Give the library a brand that reads as a serious library, not another online course. (3) Launch a sign-up page and reach the first 100 sign-ups. (?)
4. Audience
Who the work is for. Describe the main audience well enough that you could picture one person, including what they do all day and what they use now. List anyone else after, in order.
Example. Working designers in product, marketing and agency jobs who came in through a bootcamp or taught themselves. They know every tool and learn design history from YouTube, Skillshare and blog posts. After them: design teachers rewriting their courses because of AI, and people in tech who work beside designers.
5. Insight
One true thing about the audience that explains what they do today. It is about the people, not the product, and the rest of the work is built on it.
Example. They can make anything the tools allow, but in a review the decision goes to whoever can explain why, and nobody gave them the history that would let them explain it.
6. Competition
What the audience uses today, including doing nothing, and the companies they would compare you with. Say what each one does well, then where there is room for you.
Example. Most do nothing, or watch a video when a question comes up. Paid courses and bootcamps teach tools and process well, but not history. Museum sites and archives hold the sources but are not written for a designer at work. Nobody connects a design idea to the source it came from, or shows where the same idea turns up in other times and places.
7. Position
The one sentence that says what you are and why you are different. It names who it is for, what kind of thing you are, what makes you different, and the reason that difference is true. Every later decision about the brand has to agree with it.
Example. For working designers who never studied the history of their field, Meaning Layer is the research library that connects design ideas to their sources and to each other across time and place, because every passage has a permanent address and every connection shows its evidence.
8. Message
The one thing we want the audience to remember after they see the work. If there are two, pick one.
Example. Every design idea has a past, and Meaning Layer helps you trace it.
9. Support
The facts that prove the message is true. These are things a skeptical reader could check.
Example. Every passage has a permanent address, so a citation still works a year from now. The art and texts come from museum collections, each one credited. Connections between works are stored beside the text, not mixed into it, so a reader can see where each one came from and check it. University courses run on the library this semester.
10. Character and tone
The character the brand plays, the way a person has a personality, and how it sounds when it speaks. Name the character, give three words for how you want to be seen and a few adjectives, then one thing the brand would say and one it would never say.
Example. The Sage (?): a teacher who would rather show you the source than tell you the answer. Seen as serious, generous and deep. Plain, exact, calm, unhurried. It would say "Read the passage." It would never say "Unlock your creative potential."
11. Channels and response
Where the audience will meet the work, what we want them to do after they see it, and how we will count whether they did.
Example. The website, the Substack essays, the courses, and designers telling other designers. The response we want is a sign-up on the landing page. We count sign-ups, and how many of those people come back to read a second time. (?)
12. Mandatories
What must appear, what is off limits, and what the client is providing. This is where a legal line, an existing logo or a rule about images goes.
Example. The Meaning Layer wordmark and its three colors stay. No stock photography and no AI illustration. Every image carries a caption and a credit.
13. Deliverables, timing and budget
What we will make, when the client will see it, and what it costs.
Example. The brand (mark, colors, type, voice, three applications) by November 4. The brand book and the sign-up page by December 2. No budget is set yet; the founder does the work. (?)
14. People
Who the client contact is, who makes the final decision, who else has to approve the work, and who is doing it.
Example. Abe Garcia, founder, is the contact and makes the final decision.
15. Open questions
Every question mark above, with who will answer it and by when.
Example. How many working designers have no design degree? Check the AIGA design census and BLS data before the brand is final. What would they pay, if anything? Compare what Skillshare and design courses charge.
Sign-off. When the client agrees, the brief is approved in the project and dated. If the goal, the audience or the budget changes later, the brief is updated as a new version first.