Bad briefs produce bad proposals. Agencies guess, quotes balloon, scope creeps, and by the time the project starts nobody is clear what they are actually building. The fix is simple and free — spend an hour writing a brief that gives the agency enough to reply properly.

This is how we write them, what we look for in the ones we receive, and what to skip.

What a Brief Is Actually For

A branding brief is not a specification document. You are not telling the agency what to make. You are telling them who you are, what you need to achieve, and what the constraints are — so they can come back with a considered proposal and an accurate quote.

A good brief gets you:

A more accurate fixed-price quote (fewer unknowns = fewer contingency buffers)
Agencies that are genuinely suited to the work self-selecting in, and the rest self-selecting out
A faster kick-off — the agency has already done 60% of the discovery before day one
A reference document you can both return to when scope disputes come up

The Eight Things Every Branding Brief Should Cover

1. Who you are, in one paragraph

Not your “about us” page. A plain-language description of the business. A made-up example of the register you’re aiming for:

We’re a 40-cover seafood restaurant opening in a coastal town next autumn. We’ll serve locally-caught fish at fair prices, sourced from named boats and landed within 24 hours. The head chef is joining us from a Michelin-starred kitchen.

That is enough. You are orienting the reader.

2. Why you are doing this now

What has changed? A launch? A merger? A reposition? Coming up to the ten-year mark and the brand no longer fits? Regulatory pressure? A new market?

The agency’s approach should change significantly depending on why. A launch brand is greenfield. A reposition is political — there are internal stakeholders, legacy decisions, and things that are emotionally hard to change. Different skill.

3. Who the brand is for

Be specific. “Everyone” or “professionals” is not an audience. “32–55 year old parents in urban West Lancashire who care about where their food comes from and have a household income above £60k” is an audience.

If you have existing customer research — interviews, segmentation data, NPS responses — include summaries. Even informal observations (“our best customers tend to be X”) are useful.

4. What success looks like

Not a number necessarily — though numbers help. The outcome you are actually trying to move:

Higher average transaction value?
Better margin on the same revenue?
Justifying a 30% price increase?
Making the business investable / saleable?
Being taken seriously by retailers you have been rejected by?
Attracting a different kind of customer?

Be honest about this. A rebrand to “make us look more modern” is a vanity exercise; a rebrand to “justify a price position that puts us alongside Daylesford rather than Waitrose” is a commercial one. Different amounts of work.

5. The competitive landscape

Three to six competitors or adjacent brands, with a short note on each about what works and what does not. Not exhaustive — a sample.

Also include brands you admire from outside your sector. This is more useful than it sounds. If a restaurant says they admire the visual restraint of Aesop, the graphic discipline of The Financial Times, and the tone of Ben’s Cookies, you have already narrowed the design direction enormously.

6. The scope you think you need

Do not write a specification — write your best guess. The agency will adjust.

We think we need:

A new wordmark and logo system

A visual identity (colour, typography, photographic direction)

Guidelines our team and future collaborators can use

Initial application: menus, signage, website, social templates

If you do not know, say “we do not know — please recommend.” That is a legitimate brief.

7. Budget and timeline

The single most common brief mistake: refusing to share budget. The agency cannot tell you what is possible without knowing what you can spend. Sharing a budget range — even a rough one — filters in agencies that work at your scale and filters out the ones that do not.

If your budget is £8k–£15k, say so. Agencies that cannot do quality work at that level will pass politely. The ones that can will propose accordingly.

For timelines, share:

When you ideally want to launch the new brand — with any fixed dates (events, funding, product launches, property leases)
Which dates are immovable and which are flexible
Who the key decision-makers are, and when they are available

8. Who decides

List the people who will approve work, by name and role. How many rounds of reviews do you typically need? Are there stakeholders who need sign-off but are not hands-on (an investor, a co-founder, a spouse who always gets a vote)?

This is not a bureaucratic question. A three-person studio with one clear decision-maker can run a project in half the time of a six-person team where every review involves five people with veto power. Agencies price accordingly — and should.

What to Leave Out

Preferred design directions (“we want minimalist”). You are hiring the agency because they are better at this than you. If you have dictated the answer before they start, you have wasted the brief.
Long mood boards. One or two reference brands is useful context. Twenty reference brands is a sign you have not decided what you want.
Specifications of colours or typefaces. The agency will propose these.
Excessive constraints on methodology. “We want to start with a workshop” is a scope instruction, not a brief.
Detailed organisational history. One paragraph max. The agency will read your website.

The Common Mistakes

Writing the brief after you have already picked a supplier. You will get a smooth process but a worse outcome than a proper competitive brief to three studios.
Sharing only with agencies you found via Google. The best agencies for specific work are often recommended, not discovered. Ask founders in your sector who they used.
Asking for “free pitches” of actual design work. No reputable agency will do speculative design work. What you should ask for is a proposal: their read on the brief, their team, their process, their price, their timeline.
Not giving a response deadline. A brief with no deadline is a brief that will get a reply whenever. Set one. Two to three weeks is reasonable for a proposal.
Forgetting to say what happens next. Will you shortlist three? Interview two? What is the decision process? Agencies will spend more effort on the proposal if they know how it will be evaluated.

The Template

Copy, adapt, send:

Branding Brief: [Business Name]

1. About us (one paragraph)
2. Why we are doing this now
3. Who our customers are (and are not)
4. What success looks like in 12 months
5. Three to six competitors, with a note on each
6. Brands we admire (in or out of sector)
7. What we think we need (scope guess)
8. Budget range — £[low]–£[high]
9. Timeline — ideal launch date, any fixed dates
10. Decision makers and approval process
11. Deadline for your proposal
12. How we will decide

[Contact details]

An hour with this template beats a month of misaligned back-and-forth.

One Final Thing

If the agency comes back asking clarifying questions before they quote, that is a good sign. It means they read the brief, noticed what was missing, and want to quote accurately. The agencies that come back instantly with a high-confidence number and no questions are usually the ones you should not hire.

If you are writing a brief for a brand identity project and want a second read before sending it out, get in touch. We are happy to give a quick honest read even if we are not going to be the ones quoting.

How to Brief a Branding Agency (Without Wasting Anyone's Time)