5 Free Creative Brief Templates to Improve Agency Projects [2025]

Your creative agency just spent three weeks designing a website. 

The mockups are stunning, and the animation flow looks perfect.  

You present it to the client, and they have a lot to say— the design is too bold and colorful, and even though you assumed they need this approach, the client says they prefer the minimalist approach, and you've gotten it all wrong. 

In other words, you've lost money (because you'll pay your designers for the “wasted time”) and you're probably a bit frustrated. You can avoid this by getting a creative brief upfront. 

A creative brief is a document with multiple questions to ask clients before you start the project. This helps you know the specifics of their projects and includes prompts like: 

• Who is the target audience for this work/design;
• Which approach should we take? 
• What about your product should we highlight? 
• What's your differentiation that could help us better express how you standout from competitors? 
• What is the objective of this work / the desired action from the target audience (is it sales? Is it just brand awareness?);
• And much, much more.

Here's an example from Beam Content for a writing agency: 

And another from PayPal;

In this guide, I'll share tips on how to write a good creative brief and offer a couple of basic, starter creative brief templates that you can adapt right away for your agency.

How to Write a Creative Brief 

The goal of creative briefs is to have answers to necessary questions your team can refer to. It shows your writers how to approach the piece, the designers what the client expects, and more…

To start, 

Schedule a call with your clients and ask targeted questions about the project, their vision, and the timeline. During this call, make sure you understand their: 

• Business context. Ask them about the company's history, current market position, and their main competitors. It tells you where your creative work fits in their strategy. 
• Target audience. Don't just accept surface-level demographics like "women aged 25-35.” Ask them about their audience's pain points, solutions they need, and challenges they face. 
• Objective. Ask why. Vague goals like “we need to increase brand awareness don't really mean much— every business wants to increase brand awareness. 

Instead, ask them questions like how to measure success and the metrics that matter to them. This helps you deliver measurable results.

Once you have these questions answered, compile them in a brief that your team and clients can easily access. 

You can do this with an Excel sheet or Google Docs, but they may be harder to maintain as your agency grows. ManyRequests simplifies these processes through its custom forms. 

With ManyRequests' custom form, you can add the questions you need your clients to answer to create a brief. You can also: 

• Add conditional fields that show up based on project type (e.g., different questions for social media design vs. logo design services). 
• Include file upload fields for brand assets and reference materials. 
• Set required fields to ensure you get all critical information. 
• Use dropdown menus and multiple-choice fields to standardize responses. 

When clients fill out this form, ManyRequests automatically creates a brief with their answers in your portal. 

Your team can see updates to the brief in real time, and your clients can add notes or files through their portal. 

Typically, a creative brief template contains:

• Company ethos, values, or mission statement
• Target audience
• Objectives: How does this work fit into the company’s overall strategy?
• Deliverables: in what format will your creative project be delivered? When? 
• End Goal: What does the client expect users to do after consuming your content— should they make a purchase, sign up, what?
• Tone and Style: What voice and personality should the work convey — professional, playful, authoritative, or conversational?
• References: Ask for examples of work your client likes and create mood boards from it. 
• Assets and Deliverables: Every item you'll create, including file formats, dimensions, and technical specifications.
• Budget, if necessary.
• Project-specific details…

You can add or remove questions based on the project you're working on. Keep it simple and concise— aim for 1-2 pages at most, and make it a living document that both you and your client can reference throughout the project.

Examples of Creative Briefs for Agencies

Most creative brief examples are similar, but they don't all share the same specifics, especially if you're in a different industry. 

Regardless, I'll share 5 creative brief templates for some of the most popular industries out there. Adapt them to your agency's process, and add or remove as you see fit: 

1. Design Creative Brief Templates for Agencies

2. Creative Brief Template for Marketing Projects

3. Advertising Brief Templates for Agencies

4. Creative Brief Template for Video Production

Let’s say your team is creating social media videos for a direct-to-consumer (DTC) food/cooking brand that targets busy parents; your creative brief could look like this:

5. Social Media Marketing Creative Brief Template

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Managing Project Requirements with ManyRequests' Creative Briefs 

Excel sheets and Google Doc files work for a few briefs, but you need a better and easier way to store and manage projects. 

With ManyRequests, you don't even have to create separate briefs. These briefs are built directly into the request forms that your clients fill out when they send in work. 

Here's how: 

• You can create customized request forms for each service type (say, design, writing, or development.)
• The form includes all the questions you need answered for a brief ( the client's project goals, requirements, brand guidelines, etc…)
• When the client submits a request through this form, their answers automatically become briefs. 

This way, it's easier for your team and the clients to access and track the project.  

Conclusion

Creative briefs help you understand what your clients want so you can save time and deliver the right work. Our templates are a starting point that you can build on depending on the project you're working on. 

ManyRequests can also help you create and manage briefs with its custom forms, central storage for all briefs, and a task management platform for your team. Sign up for a 14-days free trial to see how it works— no credit card details needed. 

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Originally Published: September 9, 2021