What a brief form has to contain, trade by trade

A brief form is judged on one thing: how many questions you still have to ask after receiving it. If the answer is none, it is a good form, even if it is ugly.

Here is what makes it good, what changes from trade to trade, and the four mistakes that make a client give up halfway. None of what follows is a rule: it is what we have seen work, to be weighed against your own experience.

What never changes

Four questions come up in all twelve trades, and there is no reason to rewrite them every time.

• Who you are talking to. Name, email address, phone number, and the company when there is one.
• What the client wants to end up with, as free text, as one broad question rather than ten checkboxes.
• The date. The date of the event if there is one, the delivery date they would like otherwise.
• The final field. "Anything else we should know?", with somewhere to drop a file beside it. That is the one that catches everything the form did not anticipate.

If you take one thing from this article: never delete the last one.

What changes completely

The rest depends entirely on what you do, and that is where a generic form becomes useless.

Anything applied to an object (graphics kits, wrapping, signage, garments) needs the make, the model, the year, the areas to cover, the dimensions, the finish. A form that does not ask for the year of the vehicle is a form that makes you redo a template.

Anything shot or animated needs the location, the date, the number of subjects, the duration, the output format, and above all the use: a photo for a website and a photo for a billboard are not taken the same way.

Anything living on a screen (website, app, interface) needs the number of pages, what already exists, access to the domain and the hosting, the languages, and who supplies the copy. That last question prevents more delays than all the others put together.

Anything to do with the brand (identity, copywriting) needs the positioning, the competitors, the tone, what must absolutely be avoided, and the places the brand will have to hold up.

The four form mistakes

Too many required fields. A client who does not know the answer to a required question does not go and find out: they close the tab. Make required what genuinely blocks you, and nothing else.

A free text field where a list belongs. "What colour?" as free text gives you "blue". "What colour?" with a list of named shades gives you a shade. It is the same question and it is not the same work behind it.

No file upload. If the client cannot drop their logo into the form, they will send it by email, or by message, or in a conversation somebody will have to go and find. A file asked for outside the brief arrives outside the brief.

No structure at all. Thirty questions in a row, with no headings and no breathing room, read like a government form. Short sections with a heading that says what is being discussed change the completion rate and cost nothing.

Never an account to create

One last thing, and it is decisive. Your client fills this form in once in their life. Asking them to create an account, choose a password and confirm an address for that means losing a share of your clients over a formality that only benefits you.

A link, a page, some questions, a button. Nothing else.

Yours may already be written

Writing this form from scratch is an evening's work, and it is an evening nobody wants to spend in a word processor.

Kalepio starts from your trade's own questions: you pick what you do, and the matching brief is already there, with the right field types, the right lists and the right file formats. After that everything can be rewritten, because you know your work better than we do.

You can read them before creating anything: the questions, trade by trade. And if one of them looks beside the point for your trade, every page carries an address for telling us so.

Frequently asked questions

How do you build a client brief form?

Start with the four questions every trade shares, add your trade's own, break it into short sections, and finish with an open field and a file upload. Make required only what genuinely blocks you.

What fields should a brief form have?

The contact details, what the client wants to end up with as free text, the date, and the final field. The rest depends on the trade: dimensions and finish for anything applied to an object, credentials and copy for anything living on a screen.

Should brief fields be required?

As few as possible. A client who does not know the answer to a required question does not go and find out: they close the tab. Make required what genuinely stops you starting, and nothing else.

Does a client need an account to fill in a brief?

No, and asking costs you a share of your clients. They fill this form in once in their life: a link, a page, some questions, a button.