This where you explain what you need and how it fits into your organisation. Writing “We need an illustration for a poster” is good but “We need an illustration for a poster that will help us sell our new widget that is going to change the face of washing up forever” is much better.

Who are we aiming the creative content at? Designing something for new mums is different from designing something for hedge fund managers. Who your audience is will set the tone for the illustration.

If you have a particular style in mind then write that in your brief. If you can provide visual examples then that is even better. By doing this we can see if you are drawn to complex, detailed styles or a more simple, creative look. Often the style will affect how long the creative takes to complete so this becomes a factor when pricing work.

Are there any colours, fonts, logos, etc that we need to ensure are included. If you have an official brand guidelines document then include that with the brief if you can. This helps us understand your style and will dictate what we can and can’t do.

Now you can go into details about specifically what you need. Do you need 40 small spot illustration for a website or 12 double-page spreads for a children’s book? Do you need one illustration that can work across multiple formats? This helps give us an idea of the scale of the job and how best to approach it.

How will you use the creative content? The price of individual creative content like illustration is often set based on your end uses so knowing whether it’s going to be part of a long-running campaign in a national newspaper or handed out to people at a local community meeting or for use in web or digital work will make a difference to your costs.

What are the end use specifications and sizes you need and what file formats do you need us to provide? We need to consider all the end use options in the scope of work to be delivered.

When do you need the work completed by? We can then work out if the job you’ve specified is possible in that timescale and will fit into our studio schedule around other jobs we have on. It also helps us with our own financial planning. Knowing that your project wouldn’t be billable for several months may mean we need to take on other jobs in the meantime to keep the books balanced. Often clients will have staged milestones to meet stakeholder requirements – e.g. we need roughs for next month’s sales meeting so the team can approve them. Let your illustrator know this schedule as far in advance as you can.

What is your budget for the work you’ve outlined? I know that a lot of people don’t like doing this but it makes the process so much quicker. It’s often thought that creative content will just bung in a quote for the full budget amount but in my experience, that isn’t true. A budget gives us an idea of what you think the project is worth, sometimes we’ll agree, sometimes we’ll think it’s more or less than you’ve mentioned. If I think it’s less then I’ll quote less. This is especially true if you are clear that you have put the brief out to several creative suppliers.

Explain what you would like back from us in response to your brief. Are you just looking for a price or would you like us to put together a more detailed proposal? Never ask creative to do work for free but it’s OK to ask for a written outline approach to your brief and to provide examples of previous work. Would you prefer to schedule a call to talk it through? Are you the final decision maker or do you need to take it to someone else or a committee of people? All this information allows us the tailor our response to your needs and prevents you from having to come back to ask for more information from us.