What is a Creative Brief: The Complete Guide to Create Your Own [+Templates]

Any project without clear direction is a disaster waiting to happen. Even unclear planning leads to misunderstandings between teams, extended project deadlines, going over budget and overall dissatisfaction.

But how do you prevent these types of mistakes? It's simple when you have a creative brief in place.

Creative briefs bridge the gap between the client and the creative team. Without them, projects take longer, and there are more reviews. Clear and concise creative briefs inspire creative teams to ideate better solutions for the project.

In this guide, you’ll learn all you need about creative briefs, why you need them and how to get started. Plus, we share 11 ready-to-edit templates for all sorts of creative briefs.

Here’s a short selection of 8 easy-to-edit creative brief templates you can edit, share and download with Visme. View more templates below:

 

Table of Contents

• What is a Creative Brief?
• Who Prepares the Creative Brief?
• The Importance of Creative Briefs
• Types of Creative Briefs
• Key Elements in a Creative Brief
• 11 Creative Brief Templates You Can Use
• Best Practices When Using a Creative Brief

 

What Is a Creative Brief?

A creative brief is a document that establishes a foundation from which to start working on a creative project. It outlines the project’s goals and objectives, the target audience, the messaging and tone, timeline, budget and distribution process.

Creative briefs are essential overviews of all creative aspects in a project. One of the beneficial aspects of using creative briefs is that it helps keep everyone involved on the same page. By including specifics like project scope, expected deliverables and clear deadlines, creative briefs offer a source of truth about a project for all stakeholders involved.

Most importantly, creative briefs ensure that the entire team has a clear understanding of the project requirements, leading to more effective and successful creative work. This internal business document is essential to effective communication and final results.

Using clear and direct creative briefs improves the creative outcome of any project. When a creative brief is boring, noticeably cut and pasted from other briefs, or lacking personality, the deliverables will reflect it.

Creative Briefs vs Design Briefs

Creative briefs aren’t design briefs, even though they are sometimes confused with each other. Let’s clear that up.

Creative brief: Generally used for creative projects in marketing, advertising and any other creative project. It’s a comprehensive document that provides a roadmap for creative projects. Creative briefs provide detailed information and keep creative team members on the same page while working on their projects.

Here’s an example of a creative brief.

Design brief: These briefs are specifically helpful for design projects as they outline the core details and expectations. Design briefs highlight design-oriented non-negotiables like brand guidelines and deliverable specifications.

Here’s an example of a design brief.

 

Who Prepares the Creative Brief

The stakeholders in charge of the project oversee the preparation and delivery of the creative brief. Depending on the size of the project, these stakeholders are the client, the creative head of an agency, a project manager, a product owner, or a creative in charge of a smaller project.

In agency settings, many people are involved with the creative brief before it reaches the creative team. The client needs to sign off on what the agency prepares, and only then can the creative team start working on the project.

 

The Importance of Creative Briefs

Creative briefs communicate essential information the creative team needs to know before working on the project or campaign. The number one reason a creative brief is important is that it's the source of truth for everyone involved in the project.

Here are other reasons why creative briefs are important:

• It brings organization and clarity to the project.
• Creative briefs help with accountability for all stakeholders in the creative team.
• Having a creative brief prevents the waste of time and resources.

Plus, regardless of the project size and scope, a creative brief will help with execution and communication to reach the client’s goals and meet—or surpass—their expectations.

 

Types of Creative Briefs

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 Creative briefs are internal documents but can be outsourced to an agency or project manager. This difference marks two types of creative briefs: those needing background information about the client and those that do not.

A social media strategist can craft an internal creative brief for a new social media campaign for their team to follow. The document won’t need much company background because it’s assumed that the internal team already knows. Regardless, some project managers add it for assurance.

Suppose a company hires an agency for its marketing campaign. In that case, the agency will create the creative brief for its creative team and include facts like the client’s brand statement, voice & tone and any other pertinent brand guidelines.

As to categories of creative briefs, there are as many types as creative professionals. For example:

1. Marketing creative briefs help with the creation of visual marketing material, putting together a marketing strategy or coming up with a great new campaign idea.

2. Product design creative briefs direct the overall development of a digital or physical product like a new web application or a new line of shampoo.

3. Advertising creative briefs are essential when ideating new television commercials or billboards. Clients and designers in an agency hardly ever meet; the creative brief is how information moves from team to team.

4. Video production creative briefs help with all steps in video production by highlighting the purpose and objective of the final video. The creative team uses the info in the brief to ideate the best video options for the client.

5. Web design creative briefs offer clear direction to the creative team in terms of overall UI/UX design, how many pages the website needs and what’s included in each of them.
Social media campaign creative briefs have all the information a social media team needs to create unique and effective campaigns.

 

Key Elements in a Creative Brief Outline

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 Some creative briefs are different depending on the project’s goal and scope. Every creative brief starts by answering the question,

What are the non-negotiables? The answer to that gives you the core essentials for your particular brief.

To get a better idea of how to structure a creative brief, here are the core elements for any creative brief and some tips on how to make them more efficient:

• Project Name: Give the project a clear and specific name that explains exactly what the project is about.
• Project Goal or Objective: Craft a statement that describes the end result from the project lifecycle. Refer back to this section during check-ins and validation processes.
• Deliverables: Organize deliverables by internal and external. An internal deliverable could be a progress report, while an external one could be a prototype or final product.
• Target Audience: Incorporate a user persona to describe the target audience in detail.
• Brand Guidelines (tone, voice and visual guidelines): Be specific with details like do’s and don’ts, such as how to word content and use the company brand assets.
• Key Consumer Benefit: Share what the ultimate benefit is for the end user. This inspires the team to visualize a better outcome.
• Competitors: Include a list of competitors and how this project will go beyond what competitors offer.
• Project Delivery Timeline: Define soft and hard deadlines for the project deliverables and add a timeline separated into project phases.
• Distribution and Communication Strategy: Finally, add all the information necessary for teams to communicate with each other and share resources during the project lifecycle.

Other elements that a creative brief can include are:

• A short brand statement
• A brief overview of the campaign’s background and objectives
• A message describing the brand’s values and market positioning
• Team members and assignments
• Project manager or client contacts

 

11 Creative Brief Templates You Can Use

Are you ready to create your creative brief? Here are eleven ready-to-use templates to get you started on the right foot. Select the creative brief example that best matches your vision and project type.

1. Video Production Creative Brief Template

Get the video production team on the same page with this creative brief for a social media campaign. Use curated icons to visualize each section’s purpose, making it easy to skim and refer to at any moment during production.

Use visually separated sections to explain each element of the brief. Clear and contrasting color separations and shapes simplify communication and inspire inspiration.

2. TV Commercial Creative Brief Template

Before filming the TV commercial, the creative team needs a brief to work with. This template has all the sections you’ll need to share essential info with the team in charge of creating the best commercial for the client.

Highlight key data with icons inside colored circles. Save visual space on the digital document and add a popup to each icon.

Design a box popup that reveals detailed information about each point. Make sure to add a notification for the team to know that the brief is interactive.

3. Photoshoot Creative Brief Template

Keep stakeholders accountable when embarking on a print and digital catalog photo shoot. Use visual elements to inspire the team to get creative on the day of the shoot.

In this template, you have two vertical sections to include all the non-negotiables for the project. A thin line with relevant icons decorates the center separation. Take advantage of these design details to help visualize your brand personality and unique angle.

4. Radio Ad Creative Brief Template

Keeping things simple in a creative brief isn’t easy, especially when many upper-level stakeholders are involved. Use a template like this to keep information concise and to the point.

This creative brief example is perfect for reminding you that every design you create in your Visme dashboard can be turned into a template and reused as often as you want. From inside your Brand Kit, open Team Resources > Templates and search for the project you want to convert. Once it appears, click Add to Brand Templates, and you’re done.

5. Presentation Creative Brief Template

Are you outsourcing presentations or asking a creative team in your company to create them? This presentation creative brief template is just what you need to share all essential information with the presentation designers.

Creative briefs sometimes need further documentation in order to provide enough inspiration. Each section title can be a hyperlink to the complete information. Link the ‘deliverables’ button to the work breakdown structure, the ‘timeline’ to the roadmap and ‘target audience’ to the user persona files.

 

6. Event Planning Creative Brief Template

Manage an event with your creative team using a clear and direct creative brief. Have everyone on deck and informed about every aspect of the client, their goals and the expected deliverables. Organize information into arranged floating boxes and centered text.

Add key guests with a photo in a shaped frame. This template design has lots of squares; the circles with the photos balance the composition. When adding photos to Visme projects, you can place them inside circles, diamonds, stars, and other shaped frames. This visual technique helps make your content more engaging.

7. Rebranding Creative Brief Template

Lay out the essential information in visual sections to highlight the key points and list non-negotiables. This template uses contrasting colors to create two columns in different styles that fit together well. Using rounded, long labels and creative elements gives the overall design a fresh feel.

To make this design even better, add animation controls to the labels list on the right of the design. Make each label appear on the screen in order from top to bottom and adjust them. Send stakeholders the link to the brief and avoid downloading PDFs to send via email.

8. Email Marketing Creative Brief Template

Use a top-to-bottom creative brief layout to display all essential information with relevant icons. Use a horizontal timeline to highlight the expected project scope and process.

In this creative brief template, all the essential info is boxed into a shape in the center of the page. To save space, use icons and hyperlinks to direct the creative team to further documentation they might need, like voice and tone guidelines or visual references.

9. Influencer Partnership Creative Brief Template

This influencer partnership creative brief has a vertical separation to display two sets of information. On the left is a user persona module with a photo and influencer details. To the right are the goals and objectives of the partnership and expected deliverables.

You’ll likely need to recreate this brief as a template many times. Mainly the influencer information will change. For projects with foundational data that repeats across projects, implement the dynamic fields feature in your Visme editor.

Control dynamic content through the dialog available on the left hand menu. Options include using the default dynamic fields or creating custom ones to fit your content and brand.

10. Podcast Collaboration Creative Brief Template

In some cases, a project involves many stakeholders across companies or countries. Try a multi-page creative brief document with more information than the regular one-pager for these occasions.

Take advantage of the situation and craft an interactive creative brief that every stakeholder can access through a live link. Use Visme analytics to track who has seen the brief and for how long.

11. Social Media Campaign Creative Brief Template

Who says you can’t add star emojis to a creative brief? No one, go ahead and do it! Share the brand’s vibrant personality at every opportunity, including in your creative briefs. This is the perfect example of how some color, a few icons, emojis, and data widgets can turn what could potentially be another boring document into a fantastic creative brief.

If the stars aren’t your thing, you can browse the Visme design element gallery in a heartbeat using the keyboard shortcut. Click /, and a window will pop up on your editor where you can search for any design element you want!

 

Best Practices When Using a Creative Brief

Embarking on any project without a creative brief is a mistake. The benefits outweigh the time and dedication necessary to create a successful creative brief.

Here are our non-negotiables when using creative briefs in our work. They’ll work for you too.

1. Keep it Concise

Your creative brief needs to be concise. Don’t include unnecessary information that doesn’t relate to the project at hand. Use visual and hierarchical separations for each information section and ensure it’s legible.

2. Be Specific

Be specific with the language you use in the creative brief. Even though a creative brief is an internal document, you still need to inspire and convince people to act and come up with the best ideas. Your brief must offer exactly what the creative team needs to develop the best deliverables for the client.

3. Make it Digital

If you need to add more information to the brief than what fits on the page, use interactive features like popups or hyperlinks to other documents. Even if you don’t use interactive features, make your brief digital. This way, you save on paper and time because if there’s a mistake, it’s easy to change.

Share digital creative briefs with your team via a live Visme link. Add password protection for added security and track who has seen the brief. If you prefer to keep the brief offline but keep all interactivity, download it as a shareable HTML5 file.

 

Easily Streamline Your Creative Projects with Visme

Before you start on a project’s execution, put together a creative brief highlighting the objective, target audience, timeline and requirements. Creative briefs help initiate projects effectively through fluid communication and clear information flow between teams.

Now you have 11 professionally designed templates at your disposal. What are you waiting for? Browse the templates above for inspiration, choose your creative brief template and let’s get to work!

A Visme agency account is the ideal addition to your tool stack. Not only will teams and account managers be able to create amazing-looking briefs, but they’ll also be able to communicate more visually.

Give your team the magic of Visme.