Short answer: A strong packaging brief covers the product, audience, market, competitors, positioning, mandatories, deliverables, and a real timeline and budget. Describe the problem and goal — don’t design the solution in the brief.
The brief is the highest-return hour you will spend on a packaging project. A clear brief gets you sharper concepts, fewer rounds, and a fairer comparison between studios. A vague one wastes everyone’s time and your money. Here is what a strong brief contains.
Why the brief matters
Designers do not read minds; they respond to inputs. The quality of what you get back is largely set by the quality of what you put in. A good brief also lets you send the same document to two or three studios and compare their thinking on equal terms.
What to include
- The product. What it is, what is genuinely different about it, and the format or pack type.
- The audience. Who buys it and why. Be specific; “everyone” is not an audience.
- The market. Where it sells (supermarket, pharmacy, online, on-premise) and the context it competes in.
- Competitors. Three or four packs you compete with, and what you think they do well or badly.
- Positioning. The one idea you want the pack to land, and the tone that fits it.
- Mandatories. Logos, claims, regulatory information, barcodes, and anything that cannot change. In regulated categories, flag the framework early.
- Deliverables. Exactly what you need: a single label, a full range, print-ready artwork, dielines, brand guidelines.
- Timeline and budget. Real ones. Sharing a budget range helps studios scope the right solution rather than guess.
Our brief builder walks you through each of these and produces a clean brief you can send out.
Common mistakes
- Designing in the brief. Describe the problem and the goal, not the solution. Prescribing the answer wastes the studio’s expertise.
- Hiding the budget. Withholding it leads to mismatched proposals and wasted rounds.
- No success measure. Say what a win looks like, whether that is standout, clarity, premium feel or compliance.
- Too many cooks. Align internal stakeholders before you brief, not during round three.
After the brief
Send it to a shortlist of two or three studios from the directory, ideally ones with experience in your category. If you are redesigning an existing pack, pair the brief with an independent review so your goals are grounded in what is actually underperforming.
General information to help you plan, not legal or professional advice. Always confirm current requirements with the relevant body or your designer before you print.