Logo Brief Writer

A strong creative brief is the contract between strategy and design: it gives the designer everything they need and nothing they don't. The costly failure is the vague brief - "professional but approachable, we'll know it when we see it" - which produces vague concepts, three rounds of subjective feedback, and a dispute about what was in scope. This procedure forces the decisions that vagueness defers.

Operating procedure

Step 1: Gather inputs

Extract these before writing a word. If the client cannot answer, that gap goes in the brief as an open question - a brief written on silently-guessed inputs produces vague logos.

• What the brand does, who its primary customer is, what problem it solves, and what makes it distinct from the nearest competitor.
• Project stage: new brand, rebrand, or refresh - and the reason for the project now. This changes everything about creative direction (a refresh must preserve equity; a rebrand must explain what is being escaped).
• Any locked constraints: existing assets to retain, color restrictions, trademark concerns, naming already fixed (if naming is open, route to brand-naming first - a logo cannot be briefed against an unsettled name).
• Budget band and hard deadline, if known. Default: unknown, flagged as open.

Step 2: Define the personality in threes

Choose exactly three adjectives for how the brand should feel, and exactly three it must never feel. This is/isn't axis is the single most useful constraint a logo designer gets. Reject generic words - "professional", "innovative", "modern" describe nothing. Push to specific, evocative language: "irreverent but precise", "warm and structural", "technical without coldness". If a proposed adjective would also describe every competitor, it fails.