What Designers Actually Need in Your Website Brief

Most stalled web projects don't fail because of bad designers or bad clients. They fail because the brief was vague. The designer guesses, the client reacts, revisions pile up, and the launch date slides by two months.

A good brief is short, specific, and honest. It tells your designer what to build, who it's for, and how you'll measure whether it worked. Below is exactly what to put in yours, with examples you can copy and adapt.

Start With the Boring Logistics

Before anything creative, give your designer the practical details. This section takes ten minutes but prevents half the misunderstandings that derail projects.

• Company name and legal entity (for footer, contracts, invoicing)
• Primary contact and decision-maker — and clearly state if they're different people
• Budget range — a real number, not "flexible"
• Hard deadline and why it exists (trade show, funding round, current site expiring)
• Current website URL, if any, plus hosting and domain registrar details

Example: "Budget is $6,000–$8,000. We need to launch by March 15 because our current host contract ends and we're presenting at a conference on March 20. Decisions go through Sarah (CEO), but day-to-day contact is Mark (Operations)."

Explain the Business in Two Paragraphs

Your designer doesn't need your full pitch deck. They need enough context to make smart decisions when you're not in the room.

What to cover

1. What you sell and how you make money
2. Who buys from you (job title, industry, rough demographic)
3. Who you compete with and how you're different
4. Where your customers find you today (referrals, Google, Instagram, LinkedIn)

A good example: "We're a bookkeeping firm serving SaaS startups with $1M–$10M ARR. Most clients find us through partner referrals from VCs and through Google searches like 'SaaS bookkeeping.' We compete with Pilot and Bench but charge less and offer a dedicated accountant. Our buyer is usually a founder or CFO who's been burned by generic bookkeepers."

Define the Goal of the Website

This is the part most briefs skip, and it's the most important. "A modern website" is not a goal. "30 qualified demo requests per month" is a goal.

Pick one primary goal and at most two secondary ones:

• Lead generation — contact form submissions, demo bookings, quote requests
• E-commerce sales — direct product purchases
• Credibility — closing deals that started elsewhere (cold outreach, referrals)
• Content/SEO — ranking for specific search terms and building organic traffic
• Recruiting — attracting candidates to apply

Tell the designer how you'll measure success six months after launch. This shapes everything from page structure to which CTAs get prime real estate.

List Pages and Functionality, Not Features

Write a flat list of pages you need, with one sentence on what each does. Resist the urge to design in the brief.

Example sitemap section

• Home — Explain what we do, show social proof, push to "Book a call"
• Services — Three service tiers with pricing, FAQ at bottom
• About — Team bios, company story, office photo
• Case studies — Filterable by industry, each has problem/solution/results
• Blog — Categorised, with author bios and related posts
• Contact — Form, calendar embed, office address

Then list functional requirements separately:

• Calendly or Cal.com integration on Contact and Home
• HubSpot form connection for lead capture
• Newsletter signup tied to Mailchimp
• CMS so a non-technical team member can publish blog posts
• Multilingual support (English and Spanish)

Share Visual Direction Without Designing It Yourself

You're hiring a designer because they know design. Don't dictate hex codes and fonts. Do give them taste references.

The three-bucket method

1. Three websites you love — note what specifically (the typography, the way they handle pricing, the photography style)
2. Three websites you hate — and why (cluttered, dated, generic stock photos)
3. Three competitor websites — neutral observations on what they do well and poorly

Add brand assets if you have them: logo files, brand guidelines, existing photography, fonts you've licensed. If you don't have these, say so — a good designer will scope brand work or recommend a route.

Be Honest About Content

Content is where projects die. Designers can't design a page if they don't know what goes on it. State plainly:

• Will you write copy, or do you need a copywriter?
• Do you have professional photography, or will you use stock?
• How many case studies, blog posts, or product entries need to be migrated?
• Who approves copy internally, and how long does that usually take?

If you're not sure, say that too. At Axoxweb we'd rather know up front that copy is a question mark than discover it three weeks in.

Spell Out the Technical Constraints

Designers and developers need to know the boundaries before they propose solutions:

• Preferred platform (WordPress, Webflow, Next.js, Shopify) — or "open to recommendations"
• Existing tools you must integrate with (CRM, email platform, payment processor, analytics)
• Hosting preferences or contracts you're locked into
• Accessibility requirements (WCAG 2.1 AA is a reasonable default)
• SEO baggage — existing URLs that must redirect, current rankings to preserve

Set the Decision and Revision Process

This single section will save you the most pain. Agree before kickoff:

• How many revision rounds are included at each stage (e.g., 2 rounds on wireframes, 2 on visual design)
• Who has final sign-off — and who emphatically does not
• How feedback is delivered (one consolidated document per round, not scattered Slack messages)
• Turnaround time you'll commit to for reviewing deliverables

A Lightweight Brief Template You Can Steal

If you want a starting point, structure your document with these headings and fill in two to four sentences under each:

1. Project snapshot (budget, deadline, contacts)
2. About the business
3. Target audience
4. Primary goal and how we'll measure it
5. Sitemap and functionality
6. Visual direction (loves, hates, competitors)
7. Content status
8. Technical requirements
9. Approval and revision process

Three to five pages is plenty. A brief longer than that usually means you haven't made decisions yet — and the designer will have to make them for you.

Get Your Project Built Right

If you'd rather skip the guesswork and work with a team that asks the right questions upfront, Axoxweb builds fast, modern websites for small businesses and founders. Send us your brief — or the rough notes you have so far — and we'll take it from there.