The single most common cause of a web design project going wrong is a brief that was never written properly. Not a bad studio, not an unrealistic budget, not a tight deadline. A vague, incomplete, or poorly structured brief that leaves too much to assumption on both sides. A great brief does not just describe what you want your website to look like. It communicates why the website exists, who it needs to serve, what success looks like, and what constraints the studio must work within. Get that document right and almost everything else in the project gets easier.
Most clients have never written a web design brief before. They know roughly what they want but struggle to articulate it in a way that gives a designer enough to work with. The result is a project that begins with misaligned expectations and spends the next several weeks trying to recover from them. This guide walks you through every section a strong brief needs, with examples of what good looks like at each stage.
At AG Art Studio, the quality of a client brief is one of the strongest predictors of how smoothly a project will run and how well the final result will land. Here is exactly how to write one.
What a brief is actually for
A brief is not a wish list. It is a strategic document that aligns everyone involved in a project around a shared understanding of what needs to be built, for whom, and why. It serves three functions simultaneously: it forces you to think clearly about what you actually need before spending any money; it gives the studio the information they need to produce accurate proposals and relevant creative responses; and it becomes the reference point against which both parties can evaluate decisions throughout the project.
A brief written before the project starts is also a protection mechanism. When disagreements arise about scope, direction, or priorities, the brief is where both parties go to resolve them. A project without a clear brief has no anchor. Every disagreement becomes a negotiation rather than a straightforward reference check.
A brief is not a constraint on creativity. It is the foundation that makes creativity possible. The best design work in the world starts with the clearest possible understanding of the problem it is solving.
The eight sections every strong brief must include
Business overview
Start with the context that makes everything else interpretable. Describe what your business does, who your customers are, what problem you solve for them, and what makes you different from your competitors. Do not assume the studio knows your industry or your market. Write this section as if you are explaining your business to an intelligent person who has never heard of it. Include how long you have been operating, your approximate size, and any recent changes or developments that are shaping the direction of the business. The studio needs this context to make design decisions that are appropriate for your specific situation rather than generic.
Project objectives
State clearly what you need the website to achieve. Not what it needs to look like, but what it needs to do. Objectives should be specific and measurable where possible: increase online enquiries by 30%, reduce the volume of support calls by providing better self-service information, launch an e-commerce capability that does not currently exist, replace an outdated site that is damaging our conversion rate. Vague objectives such as "improve our online presence" or "modernise the website" give a studio nothing to design towards. The more specific your objectives, the more precisely the studio can align their creative and structural decisions with what you actually need.
Target audience
Describe in detail who the website is primarily designed to serve. Include demographic information where relevant: age range, profession, location, income level. Include behavioural information: how do they currently find you, what are they looking for when they arrive on your site, what objections do they typically have before buying, what information do they need to make a decision. If you serve multiple distinct audience segments, describe each one separately and indicate which is the primary priority. The more vividly the studio can picture the person they are designing for, the more likely every design decision will be made in that person's interest.
Scope and page requirements
List every page or section the website needs to include, and for each one describe its purpose and any specific functional requirements. A homepage needs a hero section with a clear call to action and client logos. A services page needs individual sub-pages for each of five services. A contact page needs a form that sends enquiries to two different email addresses depending on the enquiry type. A blog needs to support featured images, author profiles, and category filtering. This level of specificity prevents scope disagreements later and allows the studio to price and plan accurately. If you are unsure about some pages, list them as "potential" and flag them as outside the core scope.
Brand and visual direction
Describe your existing brand assets and any visual direction you want the studio to work within or develop from. If you have brand guidelines, include them. If you have a logo but no wider guidelines, include the logo files and any colour or typography specifications you know about. If you are starting from scratch or want the brand refreshed as part of the project, describe the aesthetic direction in words: the adjectives that should describe the visual feel, the tone of voice, and any references that capture the right direction. Include examples of websites you admire and, just as importantly, examples of what you want to avoid. Both are equally valuable to a designer.
Technical requirements
List any technical requirements that are non-negotiable. This includes platform preferences: if you need the site built on WordPress because your team is trained on it, say so. Integration requirements: the site needs to connect to your CRM, your booking system, your email marketing platform, or your payment gateway. Hosting requirements: you have an existing hosting arrangement the site must work within, or you have specific requirements around performance or geographic server location. Accessibility requirements: you serve a public sector client and the site must meet WCAG 2.1 AA. Any of these requirements that are not surfaced in the brief will surface as complications mid-project, which is far more expensive than addressing them upfront.
Timeline and budget
State your target launch date and any fixed deadlines that are driving it. A product launch, a trade show, a rebranding announcement. If the timeline is flexible, say so. On budget: be as transparent as you can. Studios use budget information to calibrate the scope of what they propose, not to inflate their prices to the maximum you will accept. A studio that knows you have a modest budget will propose a scope appropriate for that budget. A studio given no budget information will propose the most comprehensive solution they think is relevant, which may be far beyond what you need or can afford. The most productive brief conversations happen when both parties are working from the same financial reality.
Success metrics
Define how you will measure whether the project has succeeded, and at what point after launch you will evaluate those metrics. Conversion rate on the homepage contact form above 3% within 90 days of launch. A Google PageSpeed mobile score above 85. A reduction in bounce rate on the services pages from the current 72% to below 50%. Monthly organic enquiries increasing by 25% within six months. These are not targets the studio is contractually committing to, since many are influenced by factors outside the website itself, but they are shared benchmarks that keep the design decisions anchored to real business outcomes rather than aesthetic preference.
What to include in your visual references
The references section of a brief is one of the most useful and most commonly mishandled parts of the document. The goal is not to show the studio websites you want to copy. It is to communicate visual and functional direction more precisely than words alone can achieve.
Common brief mistakes and how to avoid them
| Mistake | What it causes | What to do instead |
|---|---|---|
| Describing the solution, not the problem | Limits the studio's ability to find better solutions | Describe the business problem you need to solve |
| No defined audience | Design decisions default to the client's taste, not users' needs | Write a one-paragraph profile of your ideal visitor |
| Omitting the budget | Proposals come back misaligned with what you can afford | Give a range, even a broad one, to calibrate scope |
| Vague success criteria | No shared basis for evaluating whether the project worked | Name at least two measurable outcomes you expect |
| Missing technical constraints | Integrations and platform requirements discovered mid-build | List every system the website must connect to or work within |
| Too many decision makers | Conflicting feedback and approval paralysis | Name one primary contact with authority to approve decisions |
The difference between a brief and a specification
A brief describes what you need and why. A specification describes exactly how it must work. Both are useful, but they serve different purposes at different stages of a project. A brief comes first and is written by the client. A specification comes later, typically after discovery, and is often written collaboratively with the studio based on what the brief revealed.
- Business overview written clearly enough that someone unfamiliar with your industry can understand it
- At least two specific, measurable project objectives stated
- Primary audience described with demographic and behavioural detail, not just a job title
- Full page list provided with the purpose and any functional requirements for each page
- Existing brand assets attached or a clear description of the visual direction required
- At least three reference websites included with notes explaining what specifically appeals about each
- All technical integrations and platform requirements listed
- Budget range disclosed, even if approximate
- Target launch date and any fixed deadlines stated
- Primary decision maker named with contact details
- Success metrics defined with a timeframe for evaluation
- Current website URL included if one exists, with notes on what is and is not working about it
A brief written with this level of care and completeness does something else beyond its practical function. It signals to the studio that you are a serious, organised client who knows what they want and has thought carefully about the project. That signal matters. The best studios allocate their most talented people to the projects that excite them and that they believe they can execute well. A strong brief makes your project one of those.
For a typical small to medium business website project, a well-written brief is usually two to four pages long. Complex projects involving e-commerce, custom functionality, or multiple audience segments may warrant six to eight pages. Length is less important than completeness: a two-page brief that covers every essential section is far more useful than an eight-page document that repeats itself without addressing the key questions. Prioritise substance over length.
Even a rough range is more useful than no figure at all. The difference between a budget of under £5,000 and a budget of £20,000 to £30,000 changes the entire scope of what is appropriate to propose. If you genuinely do not know, the most productive approach is to request ballpark proposals from two or three studios based on a described scope, use those figures to calibrate your budget expectations, and then share a confirmed range when you are ready to proceed.
Yes, sending the same brief to two or three studios is standard practice and allows you to compare not just pricing but how each studio interprets the brief and what they propose in response. The quality and relevance of a studio's proposal tells you a great deal about how they think and communicate. A studio that comes back with a proposal that demonstrates genuine understanding of your objectives is a stronger signal of fit than one that simply quotes a low price on a generic scope.
Communicate changes to the studio as early as possible. Changes before a project starts are almost always costless to accommodate. Changes during a project may or may not affect the timeline and budget depending on their nature and the stage the project has reached. The brief is a living document at the proposal stage: it is expected to be refined through conversation. Once a contract is signed, changes are handled through the studio's change request process, so make sure you understand that process before signing.
For very small updates, a detailed brief is not necessary. A clear written description of what needs to change and why is sufficient. However, even for modest projects it is worth writing down the objective, the specific changes required, and any constraints. This protects both parties and prevents the scope from expanding informally during the work. The principle holds at any scale: clarity at the start costs nothing and saves a great deal later.
Yes, and many studios offer a paid discovery or briefing session specifically for this purpose. A structured briefing conversation with an experienced studio can surface requirements and objectives you had not consciously articulated, identify potential complications early, and produce a brief document that is more useful than one written in isolation. If you are struggling to write the brief yourself or find that your requirements are complex or unclear, investing in a facilitated briefing session is often one of the most cost-effective things you can do before the project starts.