Writing a great creative brief for a creative project like a print ad, website, banner or brochure is demanding but ultimately rewarding. It is the number one thing you can do to help get quality and efficiency from a graphic designer. And really, the creative you get out in the end is only as good as the input supplied in the creative brief itself. Take a peek below for 9 quick tips to improve your results through a fantastic creative brief.

1. Realize that any designer you hire is a professional and must be treated as such.
2. Understand that designers are not mind-readers.
3. Before coming to a graphic designer, have your business model ready and your plan up to par. No design can save any business that is not well thought out.
4. Mentioning past campaigns that were successful (or unsuccessful) are always useful. Don’t forget to explain why!
5. Understand that it will not be free.
6. Communicate with the designer-do not dictate.
7. Don’t try and design for the designer. You hired them for a reason-their knowledge and talent.
8. A picture is worth a thousand words. Take a screen capture if you cannot put it in words.
9. Set expectations up front. This is the number one way to create a successful Creative Brief.

Here they are. Take it all in. This is what every Designer wants to say after they read your brief, hopefully it will be useful to you.

Everyone who works with Adobe InDesign realizes there must be more to this fantastic program. It is so versatile on it’s own, but if you dig deeper, there is still lots to learn. Here are 25 quick tips on how to improve and get more out of your experience.

25. Cmd-D (Ctrl-D) is the keyboard shortcut to place an image.

24. If Caps Lock is activated when you insert placeholder text, a different passage of Latin will be used.

23. InDesign will automatically update a linked image after it has been edited using Edit Original within InDesign, but will only flag it if edited otherwise.

22. Cmd-Option-Shift-C (Ctrl-Alt-Shift-C) is the keyboard shortcut for fitting content to frame. Cmd-Option-C (Ctrl-Alt-C) is the keyboard shortcut for fitting a frame to content.

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Exposure: 0.005 sec (1/200) Aperture: f/7.1 Focal Length: 26 mm ISO Speed: 200 Exposure Bias: -1/3 EV

This is how I did it:

Vacation photos can be tricky. The biggest issue I have is that you cannot control the weather and you are only at your viewing spot once, so you have to make the best of it. This also could mean that you have a car full of family members who want to just get to where you are going. I was lucky in that I wasn’t with a group of inpatients wanting to hurry to the next gas stop to go to the bathroom. I was fortunate enough to be able to stop to grab a few pictures at several different intervals along the way. I was also extremely lucky to have been passing by this gorgeous spot on such a clear, bright day.

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The Tragic Wand

It may be ok to use during mock-ups…but that’s it. Never ever ever do you touch this tool. It makes you lazy and the results are terrible. End of discussion.