A design brief is one page that says what you are making, who it is for, what it has to do, and what you will pay. It is the most useful document in the project, and most clients never write one. This guide is how we would like to receive one at nine75, though any studio will thank you for it.
Why a page is enough
A brief is not a specification. It does not list the pages, the colours or the fonts. It describes the problem well enough that a designer can propose the solution and be judged on it.
Long briefs fail for the same reason short ones do: they answer the wrong questions. A 20-page brief full of competitor screenshots and a mood board tells us what you like. It does not tell us what you need. A 3-line WhatsApp message that says “we need a website, how much” tells us nothing at all, and the number you get back is a guess dressed as a quote.
One page, 8 headings, plain sentences. Half an hour to write. It will save you weeks.
What goes in
The one-liner. What you are making, in a sentence you could say at dinner. “A booking site for our 3 homestays in Paro.” Not “a modern, user-friendly digital presence.”
Who it is for. The people who will use it, described as people. Age, where they live, what phone they carry, how they find you today. A tourist booking from Singapore on an iPhone behaves differently from a Thimphu civil servant ordering groceries on a mid-range Android over 4G. Say which, and be honest about which one pays.
What it has to do. The 3 to 5 things that, if they work, make the project a success. Take bookings. Show the menu. Let staff change prices without calling you. Number them in order of importance. If you cannot rank them, the project is not ready.
What exists already. The current site, the logo, the Instagram account, the brochure from 2019. Say what you want to keep and what you want gone. Link to all of it. Say who owns the domain and where the site is hosted, if you know.
What you do not want. This is the most useful section and the one people leave blank. “No stock photos of people shaking hands.” “Nothing that needs a plugin updated every month.” “Not a template we have seen on 4 other hotel sites.” Constraints make better work than wishes do.
Budget. A number or a range, in Nu. Every studio in Thimphu knows what a Nu. 15,000 site and a Nu. 150,000 site look like; telling us which you mean lets us propose the right one instead of the safe one. Leaving it out does not get you a lower price. It gets you a vaguer one.
Timeline. When it must be live, and why. A date tied to a season, an opening or a grant deadline is a real date. “As soon as possible” is not a date, and it will be treated as “no rush”.
Who decides. One name. The person who signs off on the design and the invoice. If it is a committee, say so, and say how the committee decides. Projects with 2 decision-makers take 3 times as long; that is not a figure of speech.
What to leave out
Colours, fonts and layouts, unless an existing brand fixes them. Screenshots of sites you like, unless you can say in a sentence what you like about each one. The phrase “clean and modern”, which describes every site made since 2012. And anything you would be embarrassed to be held to, because you will be.
Leave out the technology too, unless you have a real reason. “It must be WordPress because our staff already know it” is a reason. “It must be WordPress” on its own is a decision you are paying a studio to make for you. State the need, hear the proposal, then decide.
How we read it
When a brief arrives at nine75 we read the budget and the must-do list first, then the audience. From those 3 we can usually say within a working day whether the project fits, which service it is, and what it will cost as a fixed number. The rest of the brief tells us how to design it. The one-liner goes at the top of the proposal, in your words.
The template
Copy this into an email, a document or a WhatsApp message. Delete the prompts, keep the headings, and write a sentence or two under each. Blank sections are fine; they tell us what to ask.
PROJECT BRIEF — [your business name]
Date: [12 Mar 2026]
Written by: [name, role]
1. THE ONE-LINER
What are we making, in one sentence?
2. WHO IT IS FOR
Who uses it, where are they, what phone do they carry,
how do they find you now?
3. WHAT IT MUST DO
3 to 5 outcomes, most important first.
1.
2.
3.
4. WHAT EXISTS ALREADY
Current site, logo, brand files, social accounts,
domain and hosting details. Links.
5. WHAT WE DO NOT WANT
Constraints, dislikes, things that went wrong last time.
6. BUDGET
A number or a range, in Nu.
7. TIMELINE
The live date, and what it is tied to.
8. WHO DECIDES
One name, and how to reach them.Send it through the contact page or paste it into WhatsApp. We reply within one working day, and the reply is a fixed number, not a range.