How to Get Better Creative Briefs From Your Clients

"Just make it pop."

If those four words make you physically tense, you've experienced the downstream consequence of a bad creative brief. Not bad because the client doesn't care, bad because nobody guided them toward giving useful direction.

Clients aren't creative professionals. Asking them to fill out a ten-page brief and expecting the answer to "what is the emotional tone of this brand?" to be useful is unrealistic. But asking the right questions in the right way changes everything.

Why most briefs fail

They're too long

A ten-page brief template feels like homework. Busy clients look at it, decide they can't deal with this right now, and plan to finish it "this weekend." Three weeks later, you're still waiting.

They ask the wrong questions

"Describe your brand personality in three adjectives" is the kind of question that makes clients stare at a blank field for ten minutes before typing "professional, modern, clean." Which describes approximately every brand ever.

They happen at the wrong time

Sending a brief form cold, before you've had a conversation, means the client has no context for why these questions matter. The answers are generic because the client is guessing what you need.

They're disconnected from the deliverables

A brief filled out on day one becomes irrelevant by day fifteen if the project has evolved. The best briefing processes are living conversations, not one-time documents.

A better approach to creative briefs

Start with conversation, not a form

The most useful briefing information comes from a 30-minute conversation, not a Google Form. People communicate differently when they're talking versus writing. In conversation, you can dig deeper, ask follow ups, and catch the real intent behind vague answers.

"We want this to feel modern." → "When you say modern, what comes to mind? Can you show me a website or brand you think nails that feeling?"

That follow up question, impossible in a form, is where the actually useful direction lives.

Ask about the audience, not the design

Clients don't know what they want the design to look like. They know who it's for. Redirect the brief toward their audience:

• Who is the primary audience for this?
• What problem does your audience have that this solves?
• Where will they encounter this? (Phone? Desktop? Print? Social media?)
• What do you want them to do after seeing this?

These questions are easy for clients to answer because they're about their business, not about design. But they give you everything you need to make informed creative decisions.

Use reference hunting instead of adjective fishing

Instead of asking clients to describe their taste in words (which produces "clean, modern, professional" every time), ask them to show you.

"Send me 3 to 5 examples of websites, brands, or designs you like. They don't have to be in your industry. Just things that feel right to you."

Visual references do more for alignment than any combination of adjectives. When a client sends you a minimalist Japanese restaurant website and a vintage letterpress logotype, you learn more in 10 seconds than a page of written description would tell you.

Keep the written brief short

After the conversation, you write the brief. Not the client. Summarize the key decisions in a one page document:

• Audience: Who this is for
• Goal: What it needs to accomplish
• References: The examples they shared, with notes on what they liked about each
• Constraints: File sizes, dimensions, platform requirements, brand guidelines
• Deliverables: What you're making, listed individually
• Timeline: When each deliverable is due for review

Send this back to the client for confirmation. This becomes the reference document for the entire project.

Make the brief a living document

When a client says "actually, we've decided to target a younger audience" halfway through the project, update the brief. When scope changes, update the brief.

The brief should always reflect the current state of the project, not the conversation you had on day one.

The handoff: from brief to delivery

A great brief means nothing if the delivery process falls apart.

Break each deliverable from the brief into a task in your client portal. Each task includes the deliverable file, context from the brief, and clear approve or request changes actions.

With TryApprove, you create a project, add each deliverable as a task, and share a magic link. The client reviews each item with full context and gives structured feedback via visual annotations. No email chains, no guessing, no "which version are we talking about?"

Common briefing mistakes

Asking the client to write the brief. They won't do it well, and they'll resent the homework. Have the conversation, then write it yourself.

Skipping references. Words are ambiguous. Visual references remove ambiguity. Always ask for them.

Making the brief optional. Without a brief, you're guessing. Even a five-minute conversation is better than no brief. Write down the key decisions and confirm them.

Not confirming the brief. You wrote it. The client needs to confirm it. Otherwise it's your interpretation of a conversation, not an agreement.

Over-detailing the creative direction. The brief should constrain the problem, not prescribe the solution. "The audience is young professionals who value sustainability, and this will appear on Instagram" is a constraint. "Use green gradients with sans-serif type at 24pt" is prescribing the solution.

A simple brief template

Use this as a starting point and adapt it to your workflow:

Project: [Name]

Client: [Name]

Audience: [Who is this for?]

Goal: [What should this accomplish?]

References: [Links to 3 to 5 examples the client shared]

Deliverables:

1. [Deliverable name] — due [date]
2. [Deliverable name] — due [date]

Constraints: [File types, sizes, platform requirements, brand guidelines]

Revision rounds included: [Number]

That's it. One page, maybe less. Everything else comes from the conversation.

Getting started

On your next project, try this: skip the brief form entirely. Have a 30-minute conversation instead. Record it or take notes. Then write the brief yourself and send it to the client for a thumbs up.

Notice how much better the creative direction is when it comes from conversation rather than a form.

Then when it's time to deliver, set up a TryApprove portal to make the review process as structured as the briefing process. Good in, good out.

For a complete guide on the delivery side, read how to build a client approval workflow that works.