Creative Brief Template
Define requirements, goals, and resources for creative projects to promote alignment with a Creative Brief. Get everyone on the same page and produce outstanding pieces.
About the Creative Brief template
Marketing and advertising campaigns are often massive, complex projects. There are a variety of stakeholders and moving parts, a budget that is stretched to its limit, and a complicated review process. If you succeed, you can win new customers and expand your business. If you don’t, you risk burning precious resources and undoing hard-won progress.
With so much at stake, it’s essential to get it right on the first try. That’s where the creative brief comes in, providing the relevant information for any creative project, including the target audience, goals, timeline, budget, and guidelines or specifications of the project itself.
What is a creative brief?
A creative brief is the foundation of any marketing or advertising campaign. Whenever someone requests a creative project, it’s important to include a creative brief that establishes guidelines for the project.
A creative brief helps build websites, videos, ads, banners, and much more. This document aims to anticipate any questions the creator might have about the project and confirm that everyone agrees on the scope and purpose before the creative work begins.
Most creative briefs are a maximum of two pages long. They are designed to outline the project's objective, establish direction, define the audience, and nail down the message. It states the communication strategy for the project's duration, timeline, budget, and scope.
When do you use a creative brief?
Prepare a creative brief before kicking off a project to ensure that all stakeholders are aligned and the creative team (designer, writer, videographer, etc.) has all the information they need before working. By using this Creative Brief template you can capture all the information needed for your campaign in one place. The template can easily be edited and shared with all stakeholders, keeping everyone on the same page.
Who should use a creative brief?
Design and advertisement agencies often use creative briefs to kickoff projects, but marketing departments, executives, or others professionals may use them to request creative work. Freelancers may also ask their clients to prepare a creative brief to streamline their collaboration.
What are the benefits of a creative brief?
Creative briefs clarify your goal and objectives. The brief ensures that everyone is aligned on what you are trying to accomplish. It increases efficiency and reduces the need for redundant meetings.
They also articulate facts and assumptions. It builds a foundation for your project, so your design team is on the same page as your marketing team, allowing space for all stakeholders to provide input.
They also provide metrics for success and criteria for evaluation. Your marketing and design teams can refer to the brief throughout the project lifecycle to ensure they’re on track to achieve their goals increase ownership and accountability.
The creative brief also allows the design team to uncover insights about the brand. The brief is an excellent way for the design team to be better acquainted with your company, brand voice, marketing style, and aesthetic. It creates opportunities for key conversations early in the project, saving you time and money down the line helping avoid scope creep.
And finally, it keeps all members of the team informed. The brief should lay out the budget, timeline, and preferred communication style, so everyone stays aligned.
What’s included in a creative brief?
Creative briefs may vary depending on the project, but here are a few basics that every creative brief should have: summary, content format, related projects, references, description, specs, deadline, goals, target audience, and content input.
Get started with this template right now.
User Interview Template
Works best for:
Desk Research, Product Management
A user interview is a UX research technique in which researchers ask the user questions about a topic. They allow your team to quickly and easily collect user data and learn more about your users. In general, organizations conduct user interviews to gather background data, to understand how people use technology, to take a snapshot of how users interact with a product, to understand user objectives and motivations, and to find users’ pain points. Use this template to record notes during an interview to ensure you’re gathering the data you need to create personas.
Cross Functional Flowchart
Works best for:
Org Charts, Business Management
Have a quick look at everyone on a project and see exactly what they’ll contribute. That’s the clarity and transparency a cross-functional flowchart will give you. These are also called “swim lane” flowcharts because each person (each customer, client, or representative from a specific function) is assigned a lane—a clear line—that will help you visualize their roles at each stage of the project. This template will empower you to streamline processes, reduce inefficiencies, and make meaningful cross-functional relationships.
Flyer Maker Template
Works best for:
Design, Marketing
Whether it’s a client party or a nonprofit fundraiser, your event needs one key thing to be a smashing success: people to show up. That’s why promoting it is such an important part of the planning—and creating and sending a flyer is the first step. These single-page files will grab your guests’ attention and give them the key details, such as the time, date, and location (and if it’s a fundraiser, who/what the funds will benefit). This template will let you lay out text and customize a flyer design.
Video Storyboarding Template
Videos can be a game-changer when presenting a new idea. To create an engaging video, structure your narrative effectively using a Video Storyboarding Template. This ensures your message is clear and easy to understand and can help you gain support and feedback.
Timeline Template
Works best for:
Project Management, Flowcharts, Project Planning
A timeline displays a chronological order of important dates, and scheduled events. Timelines help product managers, project managers, and team members tell visual stories about progress and obstacles. Timelines enable teams to see at a glance what happened before, what progress is happening now, and what needs tackling in the future. Projects or products with specific purpose or deliverables should be based on a timeline to be successful. Use the timeline as a shared reference for start dates, end dates, and milestones.
Remote Design Sprint Template
Works best for:
Design, Desk Research, Sprint Planning
A design sprint is an intensive process of designing, iterating, and testing a prototype over a 4 or 5 day period. Design sprints are conducted to break out of stal, work processes, find a fresh perspective, identify problems in a unique way, and rapidly develop solutions. Developed by Google, design sprints were created to enable teams to align on a specific problem, generate multiple solutions, create and test prototypes, and get feedback from users in a short period of time. This template was originally created by JustMad, a business-driven design consultancy, and has been leveraged by distributed teams worldwide.