Hey guys and welcome to this video
Gareth here.
So before we begin any new project
We ideally need a good, well thought 
out design brief  to begin the design process.
As discussed in a previous episode:
A good design brief is one that 
includes all the key information
a designer can use to create the best result.
Now it's not always the case that a 
design brief will be presented to you.
Depending on who you're working for 
or with you may be given a well detailed brief
you may be given some verbal instructions 
or you may be given no brief at all.
Some clients may feel that a meeting 
will be more beneficial
where ideas and projects can be discussed verbally in a more informal and collaborative scenario.
Whatever the case may be you will 
want to establish a solid design brief
before starting a design project.
In this video I am going to show case some free resources you can use to create a brief for yourself
in the event you are not given one.
If you would like to follow along and
 acquire these you can download them for free
the link is in the description.
So in the event you are not issued 
with a design brief before project
understanding what the client wants 
and extracting key information from them
to build the brief can be a challenge.
Key information will rarely be 
submitted to you by the client.
More often than not you will have to actively seek the information from the client yourself.
Today there are many ways to acquire 
the information you need.
You can do this over telephone, 
a skype call, a meeting face to face,
or over email via a questionnaire.
In my experience I find using a client brief sheet brings back all the key information I need
This is basically a questionnaire 
for the client to fill in at the very start of a project.
So to collect information 
from a client start with the client brief sheet.
In the downloadable folder you will find three folders.
The first folder is called project sheet.
In this folder you will find a text file. 
This is a basic document I have put together
which I send to the client for them to fill in.
I use this to extract key information from the client 
and help them think about the criteria
and the project and what it is they want.
In my experience the client is pretty receptive to this 
and will take some time to fill this in.
Now the next folder is project sheet to print.
In this folder you will find one PDF document.
If you open this you will find a blank client sheet.
Now if you plan on gathering information verbally at a medium instead of over email
you can print this one off and use it to write on to acquire the key information
for the project.
So here you have the flexibility to
 use either a print or digital client sheet.
So the last folder is brief template.
In this folder you'll find a template
for InDesign and one for Illustrator.
These are some documents I have prepared earlier
and I use them to drop in all the information 
I received back from the project sheets.
So first I'll open the InDesign template.
Once open you will see that 
this carries across three pages.
Here you can paste in any information into each 
section or customise accordingly.
Now if you press W on the keyboard 
to activate normal mode
here you can see that I have placed some type
in tables to maintain the good structure
and some outside. 
This is all placed neatly into one continuous frame
which carries over on the page two to make it easy to manage.
The deliverable section is contained in 
a separate frame on the second page
and there is an extra page for any additional notes.
Now you may notice that the default font is set to Aerial.
Now if you come up to window, scroll down to styles, and click character styles in the panel
you will see the Styles set for the type in this document.
Here we see section headers, 
paragraphs and sub headers.
Now if you decide to click on these the character 
styles option menu box will open.
If you click on basic character formats on the left. 
Here you can change the font properties
over on the right and this will be applied to the document.
Do this for each style and you will 
be able to apply your own font.
Now should you want to check the 
boxes to highlight requirements
carefully click on the box stroke 
and over in the tools menu
click the swap fill and stroke arrows 
just above the fill and stroke colour
to fill the boxes.
So the next template is an Illustrator file.
Now if you do not have InDesign 
or prefer to use Illustrator
you can use this one.
Once opened you will find this much the same as the InDesign but with a slightly different layout.
This is because Illustrator works 
a little different from InDesign
and you cannot have frames going over pages here
Here you can also customize the 
fonts by coming up to window
scrolling down to type. 
Then over to type styles and just like in InDesign
you will see the character styles 
for section headers, paragraph and sub headers.
Double click on these and you can edit the styles
So once you have placed in all the key information from your project sheet into the templates
you can then export these off as PDF documents.
This can now be shared and discussed with a client for approval or refinements.
Once this is all approved the design process can begin.
So that is how you can effectively 
create a design brief from scratch.
Well I hope you enjoyed this video.
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Well that's it for another video.
Thanks for watching, 
have fun guys and I'll see you next time.
have fun guys and I'll see you next time.
