Most website projects that go wrong don't fail because of bad design or poor code. They fail because of what wasn't communicated before the work started.
A vague brief produces a guessed-at result. The designer builds what they imagine you want. You look at the first draft and realise it's nothing like what you had in mind. Revisions accumulate. Timelines slip. The relationship gets strained. And the final site is a compromise between two different visions that were never actually aligned.
A good brief prevents all of that. Here's how to write one.
Before you write anything: get clear on the commercial goal
The most important thing a web designer needs to know isn't what you want the site to look like. It's what you need the site to do for the business. These are different questions.
A site that "looks premium" is a visual ambition. A site that "generates three qualified enquiries per week from service providers in the Western Cape" is a commercial goal. The second version gives the designer something to build towards. Everything from the page architecture to the call-to-action placement to the trust signal selection can be pointed at that goal.
Before you start writing a brief, answer this question in one sentence: what does this website need to do for my business that it isn't doing now?
The six questions your brief needs to answer
1. Who is visiting this site?
Describe your primary visitor as specifically as you can. Not "adults aged 25–55." That tells a designer almost nothing. "Business owners of small professional service firms in Cape Town and Joburg, usually making a buying decision between two or three providers, who are primarily comparing credibility and price transparency before they reach out." That tells a designer exactly who they're designing for, what that person cares about, and what stage of the buying journey they're usually at.
The more specific you are about the visitor, the more targeted every design decision can be.
2. What do you NOT want?
This is an undervalued question. "I don't want it to look like a template." "I don't want it to feel cold and corporate." "I don't want it to look too flashy; our clients are conservative." These constraints are enormously useful for a designer. They define the edges of the acceptable space before any visual work starts.
Collect websites, not necessarily in your industry, that you like and that you dislike. For each one, write a sentence about why. That sentence is more useful than a mood board.
3. What does success look like in 12 months?
A measurable success definition helps both parties understand whether the project achieved its purpose. "More enquiries" is too vague. "Five qualified enquiries per month from potential clients with a budget above R50,000" is measurable. It also helps you evaluate design and content decisions: does this page architecture support that goal, or does it distract from it?
4. What's the content situation?
This is where many projects stall. A designer can lay out a beautiful page architecture and then wait six weeks for the client to provide text, images, and supporting material. Be honest about this upfront.
Can you provide well-written copy for each page, or does the agency need to write it? Do you have high-quality brand photography, or do you need stock imagery as a placeholder? Do you have a logo in the right format (vector, transparent background), or does that need to be solved first?
If content is a gap, acknowledge it in the brief. It changes the scope, the timeline, and the cost. But it's far better to know that at the start than three weeks in.
5. What's the timeline?
Be specific and honest. If you have a hard deadline, a product launch, an event, a funding announcement, say so. If you're flexible, say that too. A designer who knows you have a hard deadline on March 15 will plan and resource accordingly. A designer who finds out about the deadline on March 10 is in an impossible situation.
Also be honest about your own availability. If you're the one who needs to review and approve work, but you're in a busy period and can only give feedback once a week, that affects the timeline. The project moves at the speed of the slowest approver.
6. What's the budget?
This is the question many clients avoid answering, usually because they're worried the designer will price to the ceiling of whatever number they give. A good designer doesn't work that way. Knowing your budget lets them tell you honestly what's achievable within it, rather than quoting something aspirational and then discovering mid-project that it can't be delivered.
If you don't know what something should cost, say that and ask for education. That's a legitimate starting point. What doesn't work is saying "give me a quote" without any context, and you'll get proposals based on wildly different assumptions that are impossible to compare.
What a complete brief looks like
A complete brief doesn't need to be a long document. It needs to answer six things clearly: the commercial goal, who the site is for, what you don't want, how you'll measure success, the content situation, and the timeline and budget. Two pages that answer those questions honestly is more useful than a twelve-page document full of vague aspirational language.
The brief at White Cat
White Cat Studios uses a structured discovery process that guides you through the brief questions before any work begins. The goal is alignment, making sure the site we build is pointed at the commercial outcome you actually need, not just a visual exercise that looks good in a mockup.
If you want to start with a sense of scope and cost before you write a brief, the package builder is the fastest way to shape that. If you're ready to talk through a project, the contact page has the right options.