Design books by Seeminglee, CC BY 2.0 — https://flickr.com/photos/seeminglee/4556156477
I’ve got several stacks of design books gathering dust in my house. I’ve been to more design conferences than I can remember but with the day-to-day of banging out code I have never really found the time to sit down and properly study how to design myself. So this year I have decided to add another string to my bow of skills that are apparently going to be replaced by robot overlords in the very near future.
Where to start? A creative brief for this site, or in other words, a brand of me.
A brief should contain information on these subjects:
- A Message - what is the core idea or information that you are trying to communicate to your audience?
- The Audience - who are you communicating to?
- Deliverables - what are the outputs of the project, a website, a poster, a lovingly printed massive tome?
- Schedule - how long do you have to do it and are there any key milestones?
- The Team - who is going to do it and who are the stakeholders?
- The Budget - what is the bottom line?
Richard-Codes: The Design Brief
The Message
I want to design a digital presence that highlights my versatility across projects, that communicates tech-savvy expertise in a visually engaging website that positions me as both creative and solution focused. A client needs to be able to understand services and be able to easily get in touch.
The Audience
The design needs to attract clients who are looking to build mobile or web apps, integrate new features into their existing web estate, or modernise ageing systems. The site should appeal to organisations looking for somebody who can move between design, development and problem solving without a lot of ceremony.
Deliverables
A personal branding scheme that includes type, colours, imagery and tone.
A website needs to be delivered which includes the full design layout for both web and mobile platforms.
A blog documenting the design and tech process of this site for future reference and public consumption.
Schedule
While this is a personal project being used to learn graphic design techniques alongside the Astro JS and Tailwind CSS frameworks, I need to see weekly progress and want to have a functional site running in eight weeks from today.
The Team
Me. No stakeholders, no committee.
Budget
How long is a piece of shoestring?
And that’s the brief. Time to start researching and building.