What a good brief looks like.

A brief that describes colours, moods and reference sites is a design brief. A brief that describes outcomes — enquiries per week, direct bookings, time saved on admin — is a project brief. The second one is the one you actually want.

You don't need to arrive with a design opinion. You need to arrive with a business one. What does success look like six months after launch? Who is the site for, and what do they need to feel in the first ten seconds?

A studio worth working with will pull a design direction out of a business brief. The reverse rarely works.