What to send your designer before kickoff (a 10-minute brief)
A short brief beats a long moodboard. Ten minutes of clarity saves weeks of revision loops.
Kickoffs fail when the designer has to invent the business. You do not need a novel — you need a sharp brief. Spend ten minutes on this checklist and the first round will already look like your company, not a generic template.
1. Who you are in one sentence
Not the mission statement. The dinner-table version: “We sell X to Y so they can Z.” If that sentence is soft, the mark will be soft.
2. Who it must impress
Investors, athletes, parents, procurement, Discord mods — pick the primary audience. Secondary audiences can exist, but one group should win close calls.
3. Where the logo will live first
- Jersey / embroidery
- App icon / favicon
- Packaging
- Pitch deck
- Storefront / vehicle wrap
List the top three. Design decisions change when the mark has to survive thread, foil, or a 16px grid.
4. References that mean something
Send 3–5 links you like and 2 you hate. For each like, write one word why (“sharp”, “athletic”, “quiet”). Moodboards without notes create guesswork.
5. Hard constraints
- Must work in one color
- Cannot look like competitor X
- Needs a wordmark, symbol, or both
- Legal name vs. trading name
- Deadline and decision-makers
What you can skip
Skip font shopping, hex codes, and “make it pop.” Those are design problems. Your job is business clarity. Send the checklist above as a short email or Notion page and you will cut the first revision round in half.