Creative Brief:

Web Site

Site Basics
Brand or Company:
Tagline:
URL:

Type of Site Required

General look & feel description of the new site, based on knowledge of the primary and secondary
audience segments. What basic characteristics would be a good match for those groups?

First priority: Describe primary objective for the site. What are site visitors want to accomplish?

Is the site for a professional services company, like an accountant or insurance

agent? The site is likely primarily informational. Is the site for an e-business? Then it
may be primarily focused on enabling sales transaction. If the site is for a youth
sports team, it may be informational, a recruitment or registration tool, and a
publishing portal for schedules.

Second priority: Describe the secondary objective for the site.

Objectives
In simple bullet form, specify what purpose the site serves and what value it will bring the site owner.
 Increase xyz
 Deliver xyz
 Serve xyz
 Improve xyz

Target Audiences
List as much demographic data, parsed into audience segments, as available. Include gender, age,
geographic distribution, etc. Include any relevant behavior patterns or psychographic profile
information.

If this project is a redesign of an existing site, include URLs to top-trafficked content pages, exit pages,
etc. Summarize the most important data points available from your site’s analytics service.

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 Creative Brief:
Web Site

Net Impression
Describe the desired take-away a site visitor should have upon leaving the site. Amused? Entertained?
Educated? Should they now associate your site with having the best crock pot recopies?

Key Messages
Through design, colors, layout, function and content, what baseline messages should your site be
sending about your company, organization, or brand? Bullet out several statements.
 Suzie’s Kozy Kitchen is a dinnertime problem-solver.
 Etc.
 Etc.

Reason to Believe
In due diligence, you should be able to support or otherwise defend the site purpose. With the possible
exception of the youth sports team referenced earlier, a web site is a valuable, branded asset owned
(even marketed) by a company. The site should reflect the brand’s established brand identity (colors,
typography, message style, tone, voice, etc.) and maintain consistencies with communications in other
channels to ensure a believeable, uninterrupted experience and impression. Does this jive with how
customers (any external group) describe your company?

 20 years serving the health care needs of Monroe County

 Over 4,000 dogs and cats rescued
 Etc.

Tone and Voice

List adjectives to describe the way the site should feel, and the tone the content should assume. A
web site “speaks” to visitors and tells your virtual story. Imagine how you might greet, entertain,
and assist visitors if they were seen in person rather than via a distant screen.

When we address our audiences we should be: (examples)

Confident Clever Positive Flexible
Trustworthy Witty Friendly Creative
Transparent Encouraging Upbeat Relaxed
Fun Informal Enthusiastic Casual
Passionate Relationship-builders Solution-oriented No hassles
Customer-centric Contemporary Helpful Inspirational

Site Map
See separate document for information architecture.

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 Creative Brief:
Web Site
Keywords
If your site is primarily focused on eCommerce, specifying keywords to your design team can be very
important – even if they’re not writing your content (which actually should have been planned before the
design phase ). Keywords can also be important for professional service sites looking to rank
organically for valuable terms.
Target: Long Tail:

Competitive Landscape
Outline a complete overview of the entire competitive landscape, specifying between direct and indirect
competitors. Be sure to think across channels. Include URLs for those companies, tagline, general
positioning, and any other data available.

Tier One


Tier Two


Considerations
In this section, share general information that might be helpful to the design team not covered in earlier
parts of the document. Examples: you might add a blog in six months, you’re going to investigate
affiliate advertising later this year, etc.

Mandatories
This is where you list imperatives for the site. Whether live chat is a must, a complex search function, or
something else entirely, you have to set those things up out front. How can a design team accommodate
what they don’t know you need? No one knows your business like you.

Reference Sites
Itemize several sites – even from other categories or markets – that appeal to stakeholders. What
aspects of those sites resonate with them? Consider design elements, color, use of white space,
containers of information, functionality, navigation, etc.

Trouble Report
What issues have site visitors had with your current site in the past (what’s broken)?

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