Does It Matter If You Don't Brief Your Presentation Designer Properly?
If you don’t brief your presentation designer properly, it can show in your slides. Many conversations about design briefs focus on the relationship between the client and the designer. Trust and honesty are key, of course, but less is said about the potential consequences of the brief itself being poor. Get it wrong and without the right designer this will show up in the finished deck.
Getting the design brief right isn’t always that easy, though. If you’re busy or short on time because you have a deadline looming, it’s easy to hand over what you have and hope for the best. It can be tempting to assume you can give your designer minimal information when you need their presentation design services. Whether it’s a pitch deck, investor deck, or templates for internal documents, the more information you can provide, the better.
What really matters is who is working with your brief. A professional who really knows what they’re doing will be used to working with incomplete briefs. They will have a good idea of what might be missing and what they’ll need to ask to make sure you get the best possible PowerPoint slides.
Starting with a basic design brief
Even if you’ve just cobbled something together in your last meeting, something is better than nothing. If you don’t have time to sit down and craft a comprehensive design-brief document, we can take what you have as a starting point. The difference in the result you’ll get lies in where your designer goes from there.
What matters most for your brief?
While it’s true that the quality of the starting information will shape the outcome of your presentation, fundamentally it doesn’t matter how long or polished your brief is. Ideally you’ll give us everything we need and you’ll find plenty of information about how to brief and feedback to a presentation designer in one of our other blogs. We do recognise, however, there are times when the information you give us won’t be quite so comprehensive.
Our clients sometimes have last minute requests or are a little unsure themselves as to what needs to be included in their presentation slides - and how. We can get you the best results when we properly understand the thinking behind your presentation. Give us that, and we can help you give us all the information we need for an effective set of slides.
Less experienced or reactive presentation designers will tend to design what they’re asked for and lack the knowledge to see where there might be gaps. So if they’re essentially working with incomplete or unclear information, it will be reflected in the result. If you’re a proactive designer who knows what you should be looking for – and are truly invested in your clients’ success - you’ll spot mismatches and missed opportunities.
What are the potential consequences of a poor design brief?
Visible issues like generic layouts, slides that seem to be doing different jobs, and last-minute changes that break the flow.
No real ‘story’ running through the deck.
Forgetting to address what the audience actually needs to walk away believing
Knowing what's actually been decided and what's more part of a thought process. Including the wrong things can change a deck and its messaging significantly.
For example, ‘forward-looking’ pitches and credentials or ‘track-record’ pitches need different design approaches. They need different structures, visual language, and pacing. A good designer will help their clients work out which one they actually need in situations where a rushed brief means they’re probably not quite sure themselves.
This results in a more confident deck with a sharper story, more distinctive visual choices and appeal, and less last-minute compromises, additions, or deletions.
Find a designer who’ll spot a weak brief and ask the right questions
You might not even know your brief isn’t great. But if it’s weak or under-developed, you need to know your designer will spot that and ask the right questions, not just run with what they’re given. You need to know they’ll spot any contradictions, lack of structure, or missing bits early, not when it’s too late – or never.
The better your brief to start with, the better the outcome you can expect. But even a great brief can lack that special something – and a good professional presentation designer should be able to find that for you. Make sure your presentations are doing what they’re designed to do: communicate clearly and win you that business or investment.
Creating a better brief with your designer
These are some examples of how we’ve managed to get to the core of the problem with poor design briefs and turn them into successful presentations:
1. Establishing meaningful deadlines and workflows
A vague brief makes it difficult to give a realistic turnaround time. We were asked how long a 30-slide deck would take – but without enough detail to give a meaningful answer.
After several conversations about slide count, deadlines, and audience, we changed the question and asked when they wanted to start approaching potential clients. Their answer revealed we only had three weeks to work with and the presentation content hadn't even been created. By reframing the brief around their business goal rather than the deliverable, we built a realistic timeline and established when our design support would be needed.
2. Defining the real purpose of a presentation
It’s hard to create a presentation that meets a clients’ needs when you’re not sure on its purpose.
We started working with a client who had been exploring a different creative approach for their capabilities document. They came to us when they felt the designer they were working with wasn't quite meeting their needs: it turned out the project had started without a clear brief. So, before making any design decisions, we worked together to define the presentation’s purpose along with who it needed to resonate with, how long it would be used for, and who would be responsible for updating it in the future. As well as the design, those conversations shaped the structure and functionality too.
3. Unifying teams with a shared understanding of the vision
When a client hasn’t established a clear brief, it can lead to misunderstandings and issues within their own teams too.
We were approached by a client who wanted to develop the visual direction of a pitch deck, but their brief was unclear. It transpired that the team was creating imagery without a shared understanding of the story they wanted to tell. As various team members had different visions, multiple interpretations were still being explored and nothing was working.
We came in and created two different visual identities so the team could decide together the route they wanted to take. It unified the team and we transformed their slides with the new imagery they decided on.
If we hadn’t asked the right questions, the presentations wouldn’t have been nearly as successful as they were. If you’re not sure how well your design briefing process is working, or are concerned your PowerPoint presentations are not having the impact they should, why not contact us? Sarah, our senior designer and creative director can help.