The creative brief can be your best friend, as your worst fear — it can dictate, show, give guidelines or be completly out of order. It is supposed to help you to define what you client wants, and how he wants it. Most of the time, you should receive it from a marketing service, an obscur  communication guy or directly from the client, depending of the project. Learning how to read it is part of the designer’s job, like some kind of a police investigation, in order to understand the intricate mind of your client. But what if you have to write it yourself?
 

Starting from the beginning.
If you have to write a creative brief and are a creative, you probably are: a) a creative director, b) and art director, c) a freelancer, d) a graphic designer with some responsabilities, d) an intern without luck.
Your job is usually to understand the brief, not to write it. But today you were asked to go and meet the client for this new awesome project, and to write a report for the creative team. That might look scary. But you really  have to take it as a chance to get more and better quality informations than ever.

Conducting an interview with a client in order to get a creative brief isn’t easy. The odds are that your client has no idea of what he should tell you to be effective and will give you unnessecary informations. You have to guide him trough the meeting to really get the point of his needs and wills. Depending on the client this will be more or less a pleasurable moment: from tasteful remarks about graphic design to complains about their printers, you’re more probably to fight to get what you want. You have to adapt yourself to the situation, but don’t forget to note everything down, in order to get a complete record. (Okay, maybe not that joke about how graphic designers from the other company they hired before… or not that “I know how to use photoshop ya’know” humiliating moment)

What should contain the creative brief?
You probably know by experience what it should contain in order to be effective, or at least, in order that you can do something with it. The method is to use a funnel scheme:
Generalist  infos first, and specific ones last.
General stuff contains the “who are you” and “what is the project” questions. Specific contains graphic tone and specific graphical guidelines.

Who and What.
You should get all the clients metrics: positionning, size, history…
Then what the project is about? And what is it’s goal? More visits, a modern image, improve lisibility… Don’t hesitate to use adjectives as they can really show what the client have in mind.
What kind of deliverables do they need?

Who are we talking to and how?
What is the primary audience and it’s usual behaviors?
How will the project be used by the audience?
What are the cultural taboos/ the things you need to avoid when talking to this audience?
What does the audience thinks about the brand?
What is the message of the project and how do you want it to be perceived by your audience.
What are you competitors communication strategies and why are they good/bad?
Have you got any  references websites /brochures/ images you’d like to show us? Be careful, as your client must understand that you won’t be doing the same thing even if asked, and that it’s not about liking or not liking a design, but about effectiveness. This step might be a bit dangerous if your client isn’t very at ease with graphic design.
What is the tone you want to use? Again, use of adjectives can help you here.
At this moment, the client can give you special design guidelines. Note them carefully as it’s might be important.
How who you describe your project in one sentence?
What words would you use to resume your project?

Project details
Is there an approved budget?
What is the retro-planning?
Does the client have any gaphic design sources you can or should  use ? (Don’t forget format, fonts, logos and colorschemes)
Who are the people involved in the project, and who should you report to?
What should the process be? 

The truth is, nobody will give you answers to these questions perfectly. You have to be attentive to get everything in place.  Better use some king of table to fill during the interview than a list that will easily get messy.
Be careful as a discussion can contain more interesting informations than a “phone-poll” like interview, again by the use of adjectives. You can already “feel” what’s behind the formal words encounter. 

Now what?
Once you’ve collected all these informations and have drank a lot of coffee, it’s time to get everything right. If you’re to do this often, template is your best friend. Be it for you or for the creative team, get the time to get something good-looking, but most of all effective. Infos must be easy to read, and the less you have to open powerpoint, the best. If possible, make a 1-stand resume sheet. Easy to print, easy to handle, easy to write on.
Send the result to everyone concerned, even the client. If he finds that you’ve missed something, now the time!  And then, you can always report to the brief if he ever asks you something out of the perimeter.

And then?
Good! You’re done. Now comes the time for the real work.  Next essay? How to implicate you client in the graphic design process. 
Cheers,
Zélia.