When an entrepreneur comes up with a business idea and needs a brand to represent it, it can be difficult to nail it perfectly. The company might pivot to adapt to new discoveries, or even change its direction completely.
It can also be the case that the company has been around for too long and its logo is becoming obsolete; people change and businesses need to be prepared to accommodate them, visually and stylistically.
Here’s where rebranding comes in, a change of the image of an organization. And the best way to start this key process is by using a rebranding brief.
A rebranding brief is a document that collects and contains all the relevant information for the successful rebranding of a company. It doesn’t just include visual aspects of the project but logistical ones too (milestones, responsibilities, stakeholders, deliverables, etc).
Without one, agencies in charge of the rebranding depend on information contained in poorly-structured emails and meetings, which end up condemning future efforts. So make sure you are implementing a rebrand creative brief in your agency and freelance processes!
Although each rebranding creative brief will be different since they need to accommodate the needs of businesses from all over the world and across several industries, there are some characteristics that make them effective:
A rebrand creative brief is all about capturing the right information in form of questions and exercises. But be careful, don’t overwhelm your client with long and irrelevant briefs, they’ll get confused and probably won’t finish it.
Since the information contained in the brief will guide the efforts of designers, strategists, and project managers, the documents need to be easily accessible.
Many creatives fall into the trap of thinking that their clients don’t really know what they are talking about, but that cannot be further from the truth. A good brief makes it easy for the client to share their knowledge, know-how, and expertise through well-thought exercises and questions.
Trying to write a rebranding design creative brief can be a bit intimidating if it’s your first time, but if you follow the following steps you’ll have your in a matter of minutes. The other (better) option is to use our customizable rebrand brief template for free by creating a HolaBrief account!
The first section your brief must include is an overview of the project and company. This will be useful to introduce everyone involved in the rebranding project to the client and their past efforts. Some questions that you might include are:
It’s very important not to miss this step since it will put everyone on the same page from the getgo.
Clearly, the business is in need of a rebrand because they weren’t fulfilling some objective. It’s your job to uncover what was wrong with the old brand and what they are trying to accomplish with the new one.
Perhaps it is to increase sales by 10% or improve their NPS Score by 15%. Include this section in your brief and focus on solving real business problems, not just making the new logo look “cool”.
Chances are that the current logo and style isn’t representing the brand’s essence correctly. That’s why it’s imperative to capture - in some way or another - what that essence is right now. The brief should ask the right questions about the business’ values, personality, and style to uncover what they are trying to communicate.
In HolaBrief we have several interactive exercises you can use and send over to your clients! Make sure to include them in your briefs.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter that the new logo capture the brand’s essence if it doesn’t appeal to their customer persona. Your rebranding brief should include a section that makes the client think deeply about who their target audience is and give as much detail as possible.
Once you’ve gone through the objective, captured the essence of the brand through exercises, and constructed the target audience, it’s time to give the rebrand a visual direction. In other words, based on the information collected in previous sections: How do you (and your client) want the new brand to look like?
Interactive Moodboards are a great tool for this step since both of you can upload images of brands and pictures you like. In HolaBrief we offer this tool for free, so go try it out!
If you want to be sure you are building your rebrand design brief correctly, we’d suggest starting with our already tested and proven template inside our platform. Here’s what you’ll find:
After finishing this blog, you are in the best spot to write a rebrand design brief from nothing, no matter the type of project. But what if I told you you don’t need to start from scratch?
We built HolaBrief to develop the best creative brief software out there. After doing hundreds of briefs, talking to dozens of agencies, and lots of trial and error, we’ve created the ultimate tool to create interactive, collaborative, and professionally-looking briefs.
You can give HolaBrief a try FOR FREE, create your brief and send it to your client in a few minutes. As simple as that!
See you inside.
Build your own creative brief fast and collect your clients' responses with HolaBrief!
Try for FREE
.png)
