Most briefs we receive are either too vague or too prescriptive. Either we're guessing what the client actually wants, or we're being asked to execute someone else's half-formed layout decisions. The sweet spot is a brief that tells us what matters without dictating how to achieve it.
Here are the three things almost every brief is missing - and what to send instead.
1. Show us something you like
"Clean", "modern" and "professional" mean something different to everyone. The fastest way to align on aesthetics is to send reference material. Pull three or four publications, spreads or covers that feel right. They don't need to be in your industry - what we're looking for is a sense of hierarchy, tone and visual weight.
Bonus points if you can also tell us what you don't like. "Not too corporate" and "avoid this style of typography" are genuinely useful constraints. References - both positive and negative - take a brief from vague to specific in one step.
Tip: Tear sheets from actual magazines work better than mood boards. A single spread from a publication you admire tells us more about your taste than a Pinterest board of isolated elements.
2. Give us the actual specification
We need to know: page size (A4? A5? custom trim?), number of pages, how those pages break into sections, and the hard deadline - not a vague timeframe, but the date files need to be at the printer. We also need to know whether this is print-only, digital, or both, because each changes how we approach colour, image resolution and file preparation.
Without this, any quote we give is an estimate built on assumptions. When those assumptions are wrong, projects go over budget or over time. Getting the specification right at the start is the single most effective thing a client can do to protect their budget.
3. Send the content before we start
This is the one most clients resist. It's tempting to say "design it first, we'll fill in the content later". But magazine design without content is like building a room around furniture you haven't chosen yet. The length of a feature, the shape of a photograph, the number of items in a list - all of these drive layout decisions.
Even rough copy and low-resolution image selects are far better than nothing. We can design around a placeholder image if we know the final will be landscape and roughly that proportion. We can't properly design a feature page without knowing whether the article is 500 words or 2,000.
What good looks like
A brief we love to receive says: here's the format and spec, here's what it needs to feel like (with references), here's the content (or at least a clear content structure), and here's the deadline. That's genuinely enough for an accurate quote and a first draft that doesn't need three rounds of structural revision.
If you have brand guidelines - typefaces, colour palette, logo usage rules - share them upfront. If you don't have brand guidelines and you're producing a magazine, it might be worth building them into the design system as we go. Consistent typography and colour between issues is what turns a publication into a brand.