# The Workhorse creative brief

The studio's own, as written for Resume Place (2022) and the PBS Innovation Team (2021), with the one line on top adopted in 2026. It is the document a brand project is measured against: every decision in the work is checked against it, and if an idea does not serve the brief it does not ship.

Source: Workhorse Collective, studio archive. The Resume Place brief is on the class page as a PDF, the whole page.

---

## The brief in one line

**GET** ____ **WHO** ____ **TO** ____ **BY** ____

Written last, put first. If the four slots do not agree, the pages under them are not finished.

## 1. Project overview

The project in a line, and the timeline.

____

## 2. The team

Who is on the client side, by name and role. Who decides.

____

## 3. History

Where the company or the product came from. Telling a proper story, in prose, from the client's own account.

____

## 4. Project objective and deliverables

What this work is for, and the list of what will be made.

____

## 5. Aspirations: we want to be seen as

Three words, a paragraph each: why it is true, and how the work will show it.

____

## 6. Audience: who is this project talking to?

Numbered audiences, each with a description and a line of examples.

____

## 7. Competitors: who's the competition?

Grouped by category and named. Big corporations, small business, non-profit, the free thing, doing nothing.

____

## 8. Adjectives that best describe the feeling or approach

Eight to ten.

____

## 9. Message: what are we trying to say?

One sentence. Then the audience takeaway: the one thing they should remember.

____

## 10. Project milestones

Dated, with a day or two of padding.

____

---

Other formats on the class page: [the one line](/course/business-of-design/handout/brief-one-line) · [Goodby, Silverstein](/course/business-of-design/handout/brief-goodby) · [Ogilvy DO](/course/business-of-design/handout/brief-ogilvy) · [the design studio's](/course/business-of-design/handout/brief-design-studio) · [Workhorse's](/course/business-of-design/handout/brief-workhorse) · [the course template](/course/business-of-design/handout/creative-brief-template)