5.1 Understand the requirements of working to a brief

What is a brief? There are 7 different types of briefs (Contractual brief, Cooperative Brief, Formal Brief, Informal Brief, Tender Brief, Competition Brief and Cooperative Brief all these brief will be try to communicate across what the general idea or the objective of work to be done.  It will also demonstrate about some information of which the client has done before and what business there involved in.  It will then continue on to tell you how much the client wants for the job and the deadline date for the piece of work.  

Contractual brief is presented in a contract, which will be written as an agreement describing the roles and responsibilities that you and the media firm have agreed upon.  This format is very detailed and will explaining completely and clearly what you will be paid and what the deadline is but is hard to change after signed.


A Contractual Brief has its advantages as the Media Company will know and understand what the product is and how it should be created. Below is an example of what a contractual brief may actually look like, explaining what you have to do, what the deadlines is. 

Negotiated brief is when both sides have different views and idea about the work, the deadline and the money involved. But they have come to a decision by listening to each others ideas and agreeing with both sides happy with everyone’s overall ideas and views. The brief Is then created by discussing what should or should not be put in it as this brief is created this is good for the client to be able to put what they want to see in the brief.

Below i have a photo of the employees and the manager, discussing the contract which has been negotiated to try arrange and agreement between the two. This is a typical meeting of how they'd go with the manager and the employees discussing the issue at hand. 

Formal brief this is when the client may very clear views about what they want you to achieve of the project and describe in lots of detail formally what to do. The advantages of this brief would be the client gets what they want but the media firm is not fighting against another company for you.

Below is an example of a formal brief, displaying what the project is and how it will be worked append and delivered. They'd usually have the same concept and layout with the media firm not fighting another company for your signature.

Informal brief is when the client will not be acting professional and may even ring the media company to tell them his demands of working for their project instead of writing a piece of writing or letter. This is good for speed and to start the project quickly but this agreement isn’t written down in writing.

Below is an example of informal brief, used in an United States court. The layout is clear and understandable, its sets out in numbers to be able to follow the steps easy. 

Tender brief is when a client will publicise their brief and a media company will make a proposal to the client and this is when there could be more than one proposal from different companies. The client will then get the best choice to pick which is best for them for money, time etc.

This is an example of a tender brief. The tender brief is where a client publicly publishes that it wants something done, allow many businesses to come and pitch for a placement in the role he made public. The client then may use many of the business which came and pitched for the client. 

Cooperative brief this is when it involves more than one media firm conversing with another company to agree the brief or another example would be the client talking to more than one firm. This is good for sharing complicated jobs between different firms therefor having a written agreement so everyone knows what there roles are and when the deadline is etc.

below is an example if a cooperative brief. The brief requires 2 or more media companies to complete the project. They must work together for the the work to be completed, this is difficult as if they have a disagreement they'd have to split the project equally to boths best ability. 

Competition brief has similarities to the tender brief, this is when the media firm will be in a competition allowing several people to take part but one small detail would be the less detail in the brief and this therefor would produce many great ideas but this would then slow the project down due to so many ideas coming in making it difficult to choose.

Below is an example of a competition brief which is exampling the details of the competition and and what to do to win the competition, it also explains what the deadline date is. It's what all competition brief will roughly look like, some will have more colour and little words to attract the readers. 

Why is it important to stick to a brief is so that you meet the deadline set by the media company, by following a brief all the information involved in it will help you complete the project that the media company wanted you to therefor being able to make your project to a high standard. Completing the task to such a high standard will therefor put you in good contention of doing another project for this media company and then gaining awareness for other company’s wanting you to do work for them. You must pay attention to what the brief is, to make sure what you're doing correctly and to discuss with your client about the task in hand. Deadlines are important, so you need to know when the deadline is and how you know you will have the work completed in the that time period. Sometimes you may need to negotiate with the client about a possibly extension if you don't agree with the time period being given. Lastly you need to know whats been required from you to do this task.