How I Find the Real Message Behind a Brief

Jul 21
3 min read

A brief tells me what to make.The conversation tells me why it matters.

A brief is the starting point of every project.

It usually tells me what needs to be produced—the deliverables, content, dimensions, timeline and brand guidelines.

But knowing what to make is not always the same as understanding what the work needs to communicate.

That understanding usually comes through conversation—asking questions, checking assumptions and listening for what may not be fully explained in the written brief.

Before I begin designing, I move through four stages:

Understand. Clarify. Challenge. Structure.

Only then do I design.

01 — Understand the context

I start by looking beyond the requested deliverable.

Who is the audience? Where will they see the work? What does the business need to communicate? What should the audience understand, remember or do afterwards?

A brochure may need to explain a complex product. A presentation may need to support a decision. A campaign visual may need to make one message stand out among many.

The format tells me what I am making.The context tells me what the work needs to achieve.

02 — Clarify the real message

A brief may contain all the required information without making the main message clear.

When everything appears equally important, the audience may not know where to look or what to take away.

Before thinking about layout, I clarify the priority:

What does the audience need to notice first?
What might be difficult to understand?
What is the one thing they should remember?

This gives the project a clearer communication objective—not only a list of content to include.

03 — Challenge assumptions

Sometimes the first request is not necessarily the most effective solution.

There may be too much information competing for attention. The proposed visual direction may not suit the intended audience. Or the most important message may be buried beneath supporting details.

Challenging a brief does not mean changing the client’s direction unnecessarily. It means asking whether each decision supports the objective.

It is easier to resolve these questions before design begins than after several rounds of revisions.

04 — Structure the information

Once the message is clear, I organise the content around it.

I decide what should come first, what belongs together, what needs more explanation and what can be simplified.

This structure becomes the foundation of the visual hierarchy, pacing and layout.

Without it, design may make the information look polished without making it easier to understand.

The same deliverable can have a different purpose

I saw this repeatedly while working on insurance product brochures for Chubb Hong Kong.

The deliverable was often the same: a product brochure created within an established brand system.

But the audiences were different.

Some products were created for older customers, while others spoke to families. Both required accurate information and consistent branding, but the message priority, visual tone and information structure could not be identical.

The format remained the same.The communication needed to respond to the people reading it.

That difference only becomes clear when I look beyond the deliverable and understand why it is being created.

Then I design

By the time I begin designing, the direction is no longer based only on what looks appropriate.

I understand the audience. The message has been clarified. Assumptions have been considered. The information has a structure.

This gives every visual decision a reason—from hierarchy and imagery to typography and spacing.

A good brief gives me the information I need to begin.

The thinking behind it gives the design direction.

Understand. Clarify. Challenge. Structure. Then design.

Because before I decide how something should look, I need to understand what it needs to communicate.

Let's work on it together.

See how this thinking was applied across a range of insurance product materials in the Chubb HK Visual Strategy case study. cindylai0110@gmail.com · cindylai.studio