
Hey guys, today I decided to go back to my roots and offer a sort of "How to" on tackling design briefing and drafting phases with big clients. This is a totally unique insight from my experiences with big clients back in my freelancing days. If you're a startup, some of this insight will be extremely helpful to you.
In this guide, I'll be using the concept of "Inverse Solutions" which is a made-up company that I well.. Made up. So Inverse Solutions is totally fictional company/client.
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THE BRIEF
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So the terms have been set, and agreed to. Our deposit has been paid, and we are now officially working for Inverse Solutions. We’re now ready to look at a design brief. And a design brief is extremely important.
**It’s now time to be briefed.**
If you’re new to being paid for graphics design, let me explain what a brief is exactly.
_A brief is a set of details and or instructions that we must follow when we design a graphic. It’s a guideline and a target. It’s a rulebook, a set of limitations. Things you can do, what you can’t do._
It’s probably best to think of a design brief as a sort of Questions and Answers sheet. If your client doesn’t have one prepared, it’s up to you to create one. This is a very useful to know how to do. And remember, ask questions. More questions = More answers, = more guidelines.
>## DESIGN BRIEF
>**What’s the Company Name?**
Inverse Solutions
**Describe what your company will offer in terms of services and product.**
Inverse Solutions is about creating a revolutionary form of creating programs through innovative and unique way of coding. A completely new programming language we have named “Inverse”.
**What is your target audience?**
Our target is the newer generation and old generation of programmers and software engineers.
**What are the major things you wish to convey to your targeted customers?**
We want to convey innovation, cutting edge and thinking outside of the box. Secure, reliable and timeless.
**Who are your major competitors?**
Oracle, Apple, Google
**What makes your company unique from competitors?**
Our programming language is absolutely unique from any out in the world. We offer an innovative way to program, and are quite confident that our project will redefine the way the world looks at coding. I also like Pandas.
This is a good example of what we should expect from a design brief. We can take a look at this article, and find out what the Client is about, what sort of product he’s trying to offer to his customers.
Of course, you’ll need to interpret everything the client includes in the brief.
**Come on, let’s take a closer look at this.**
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### Company name
If we didn’t know already, our client’s name is Inverse Solutions. We can refer to that in the future in case we forget.
### Describe what your company will offer in terms of services and product.
Our client graciously provides us information about what his company plans to sell. We know the nature and exact details about what he’s planning. His company is proving the world a new coding language. We will need to know this when it’s time to brainstorm the design.
### What is your target audience?
Our client tells us that we’re targeting the young generation of programmers and experienced software engineers. This will help us a lot in our brainstorming phase. He gives us information to research, what exactly appeals to this target audience. This section of the design brief alone, will provide us a focus when its time to design.
### What are the major things you wish to convey to your targeted customers?
Our client offers even more insight into what we need to focus our time on developing. We know our graphic needs to incorporate Modernism. We know we want to invoke the feeling of Innovation, and it will need to be timeless.
### Who are your major competitors?
Our client provides us with a short list of names, however, this is HUGE for us. It allows us a chance to check out what approaches that other company’s have taken into making their brands. It gives us targets to research, and researching is extremely important. The more we research, the better our understanding of what our client needs, and the better our understanding is, the more accurate we can be when designing. ALWAYS find out this information.
### What makes your company unique from competitors?
Our client explains to us, why he thinks his product is unique. This is more of insight, it further helps us understand the client and his product. More information is never a bad thing for us.
**We’re looking for as much information as we can, so expanding your design brief is never a bad idea. Just as long as you follow it.**
With our brief fully constructed, we can now consult it at will to use when we design. We now have topics to research, markets to understand, but most of all, we’re ready to begin brainstorming.
We also know that the client loves Pandas.
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BRAINSTORMING
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Brainstorming is an extremely healthy practice to do when you’re designing. It provides you a frame and goal for your design. It allows you to plan and ensure that your design will follow your design brief. Recording such a thing adds weight behind your design proposals and ensures a structure that you follow when you design.
It’s totally up to you how you do your brainstorming. If you want to use a piece of paper, that’s absolutely fine, as long as it’s recorded. Or maybe, a word document. Totally fine. There are some websites out there that allow you to do this for free. One that I like to use is Coggle. But I can assure you, it doesn’t matter where you do it, as long as you make it a habit of doing it.
_Let’s take a look at a few examples of brainstorming._

This is a mindmap that I created using [Coggle](https://coggle.it). I really like using coggle because I love how my mindmaps look afterward. And clients absolutely go crazy for things like this. Because it shows a refined professionalism and comforts them in knowing we must be experienced if we do things like this.
However, as I said before, you don’t need to use a website to do this. Here’s a mindmap I did just in illustrator.

Just using a simple type tool, we’re recording our ideas down and building ourselves a sort of road map to what we’re going to do.
Here's how I break the design down. 3 basic elements.
### FEEL. IDEA. PERSONALITY.
**Feel:** What sort of feelings are we wanting to invoke from the viewer?
**Idea:** How will we incorporate the client’s idea into the graphic?
**Personality:** What sort of personality will we give our graphic?
You’re essentially asking yourself questions, and recording them.
What sort of feeling do we want to invoke from the viewer? Revolutionary, Innovation... How will we do that? Let’s take a Modern approach... Let’s use a Minimalistic approach, as it coincides with younger generations target audience.
Doing this process, we can easily tweak the process, and add and remove things as we want. Until we can account for how our graphic design will incorporate the design brief.
If you’re new to this process, I highly recommend using [Coggle](https://coggle.it).
Once you have a solid recorded brainstorm/mindmap. We can proceed to the next step of the design project. Drafting.
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DRAFTING
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So far, we’ve actually done quite a lot. We got to know our client. We drafted up a fairly okay contract. We’ve received and studied our design brief, even did a bit of research. We created a mindmap and know exactly what ideas we want to do in the graphic. Time to hit illustrator right?
_Well, that depends._
Sketching out your drafts is an extremely healthy practice. It allows your creativity to flow openly, and experiment with your ideas with little commitment and effort. I highly recommend you get into this practice even if your drawing skills aren’t that great.
For this project, I decided not to go over sketching, and hit the canvas straight away in illustrator.
So for now, we’re going to skip this step, since I already created the drafts. But for reference and all intents and purposes. Here’s what we came up with for our Logo.

We came up with various different logos. And experimented with different concepts, all while keeping true to our brainstorming.
We incorporated the aim idea, feel, and personality from before. We’re also keeping in mind that this will potentially be a brand. And a brand needs to be responsive in nature. As in, “Will it look good if we increase or decrease it in size?”. As a brand needs to be able to be used in any aspect of the client’s projects.
**A brand is an Identity. Not just a logo.**
So we present our drafts to our client, and he really loves the direction with the design. In fact, he feels that we really nailed what he was looking for. He sees the graphic, and really identifies with it. He feels his product can get really behind this image and point out his favorite variation. He then requests an amendment, which he is entitled to based on our contract.
We revise it.
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We present the client with this, and he’s absolutely happy about it. This is his logo. This is the forefront image he wants to base his company identity behind.
Now, that’s the perfect world scenario. But we don’t live in a perfect world.
Sometimes, the Client just doesn’t like what we draft. This is why Sketching is something that’s highly recommended. But still, even if we present our sketches before drafting the logos, a client may approve of a sketch and we’ll draft it, and he’ll end up hating it anyway.
_This is where the pressure sets in._
Had we not defined the terms of agreement, we would be potentially working for a long time without compensation. But thanks to that now, we have to nail the design, or risk not getting paid for the remainder of the work.
Why? Because the client at this point will begin to see you as inadequate or incapable. Why should he pay us more if we’re the ones that can’t design something he likes?
What do you do in a situation like this?
We definitely want to finish this project. We definitely want to show that we’re capable of delivering. But we’re already 2 drafts down with one left over, and we sketched 10 different designs. Here’s what you should do.
### 1.Calm down.
It’s extremely easy to get frustrated at the client at this point. I mean, seriously? What does he know? If he was any good at knowing what’s good, why did he hire us? He hasn’t gone to school for graphics design or even looked at how to create graphics before. But even still, creating something that the client likes is something that needs to happen. Calm down. Take a break. Even if there’s a deadline. You should take time to calm down before you try again.
### 2. Better presentation.

To a designer, A logo on a piece of paper, or computer screen looks the same. To us, no matter where the logo is presented, we’ll always critic the logo if that is the aim. But for clients who aren’t trained in design, a logo used in the right spot could make all the difference in the world. So try using some sort of mockup. Like a computer screen, poster, flyer or business card. Showing a logo in an example may be enough to convince our client to like or.. “Grow on them”. This is an extremely effective tip.
### 3.Collect information again.
Perhaps going over the design brief with the client again, redefining some points here and there will be enough to convince our client. Using client feedback is extremely good, so when you’re pinched in this corner, listen well. Re-read the draft and try again with more confidence.
### 4. Ask for an example.
Sometimes, no matter what we do will never be enough for a client. In this case, asking the client if there are any inspirations and examples that he really likes. Be careful, you don’t want to copy other people’s logos, but if there’s a logo that the client really likes, take inspiration from them. Perhaps use some of the techniques in your own composition.
### 5. Submit to the will of the client
Sometimes, the client just doesn’t like the approach you’re taking, and thinks he has a better approach. In my experience, I’ve designed projects that looked extremely good, but then I was forced to make them exactly match my client's personal preferences. I’ll never showcase those projects on my portfolio because they look so bad. But the clients were happy, so in a way, it’s a win for me too. Sometimes, you just have to submit to the will of the client, if their project looks like crap because they want to back seat design, that’s entirely on them.

As a personal goal, I do my very best to keep my clients as happy as I can. Sometimes, I’ll offer a freebie, or don’t include something in the final payment to resolve an issue. However, there are risks that I take when I do that. It’s up to you how you run your design service. Just remember, Good ratings count too!
**If you provide your client a good experience, it’s more likely they will come to you with more projects, or rarely, suggest your service to someone else.**
But sometimes, nothing above will help. The client is entirely convinced that you cannot fulfill your service. And they’ll walk away no matter what you do. In those extreme cases, because it will almost certainly happen to you eventually, you must keep calm. Keep your composure.
Always act like the bigger man, because you have an image to maintain. Everyone will have a critic, everyone will have a bad day, but maturity and formality is what keeps you in business.
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Now, let it all sink in.
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Now I know that this article is a lot to take in, but there is definitely some valid and helpful information in it. I only hope that you guys might be able to benefit from my knowledge.
If you guys are digging what I'm doing, please follow, upvote, re-steem. It's only because of those things I'm able to submit content like this. Any bit helps, and I would be eternally grateful for that. Also, please if you can, check out my other content @malicered, there's alot more where this came from.
In my next tutorial, I want to teach you guys step by step how I actually created the Inverse Solutions Logo.
Thank you so much for your support guys, please hit me up on the comments!