Essential Design Brief Questions for Websites and Graphic Design

Whether it is a design brief for a website or a graphic design project, I would consider these five design brief questions a must have before starting the project.

1. Objectives of the project
2. Company profile – branding
3. Target audience / market to reach
4. Budget
5. Deadline

Note that when I say must have, they form the fundamental foundations of the design project and it is recommended to have additional questions specific to the nature of the project too.

Now let me explain a little more on my reasoning for these five questions and how they help the workflow of the design project.

Website and Graphic Design – Essential Design Brief Questions

Objectives of the project

When building a website or graphic design project it is important to have clear objectives. Idealy each objective will have its own measure of the results it produces.

We can give an example of a small business that needs a new website. The business is new to the local area though has a unique offering not yet available in the region. The business offers custom designed and built WordPress websites. The business has identified a niche market of businesses needing a website that staff can manage themselves and wish to be able to meet directly with the website designers and developers.

The key objectives to the website would be:

• Search engine optimisation (SEO) with a local focus, this means that the website will appear in local searches for people wanting a WordPress CMS website or a website staff can update
• Making a priority on the website that face to face meetings are easily arranged and possible in the area. The website would have a call to action of making an appointment to come and visit.
• Making people aware that all websites created all come with complete training own how to easily manage the website internally by staff
• Having an order form on the website that also covers the basics of what is needed to start the website project underway

Company profile – branding

When going to start a design project knowing as much about the company or business is esstentail. Ideally there is some form of branding that comes with the project (unless of course this is a branding project) which will help guide the project.

Target audience / market to reach

When going to start a design you need to know who the design needs to engage the most. Is it freelance website designers or people who are wanting to get fit while outdoors. Knowing such things along with research will help guide the design by the use right imagery and words specific to that people/culture.

Budget

Knowing a budget is very helpful in terms of allocating time to specific work to complete the project.

Deadline

This one is pretty straight forward. Knowing a deadline allows for a designer to review the requirements/objectives and if it can be done with a timeframe.