Information about the Client describes who and what you’re responding to through your design. You should include:

• Who they are

• What they value

• Context of the project

• For who/what

When you choose your Client, you can select an existing company/organisation/institution, etc., or make up your own. 

Suppose you will use an existing copyrighted material of the selected Client (e.g. City of Melbourne logo). In that case, you should contact the organisation to acquire permission to use copyrighted materials in your work. 

Communication needs are the outline of what the Client wants you to respond to through your design.

• What do they want you to respond to

• Possible outcomes (what you might produce at the end of Folio) (you’ll be elaborating on them under the section Possible Presentation Format)

• Application of the outcomes (where the design might be seen/used)

• Context (why this communication need is important, how your design will be beneficial for the Client, the imaginative ‘back story’)

Keep it concise and creative! Use words ‘may be’ ‘might be’ ‘can be’ instead of ‘I’m going to’ ‘the outcome will be’ – you don’t want to lock yourself into the situation where you have to produce what you mentioned in the brief. 

Target Audience is a particular group of people who you are mainly responding to. Sometimes the Target Audience is the same for both Presentation 1 and 2, but can be slightly different depending on the Presentations. You’re constructing a profile based on attributes such as:

• Age group (e.g. people aged 20-40 years old)

• Gender (e.g. unisex)

• Interests (e.g. outdoor sports, animals, cooking, etc.)

• Socioeconomic status (e.g. having low to high income/ disposable income/ stable income, can afford to buy…)

• Possible purposes of engagement (e.g. for education, leisure, work, social gatherings, etc.)

• Location (e.g. live in the urban area / within 50km radius around the… / outer suburbs)

• Cultural/religious factors (e.g. familiar with… / having an understanding of… / having a cultural background of…)

Some attributes may be more relevant to you than others (e.g. design of perfume for a luxury brand has a stronger relevance to the socioeconomic status of the target audience than cultural/religious factors). 

Expectations and constraints are the factors that you need to consider to respond to the brief. Here are some examples (you should choose what applies to your brief):

Expectations

• Communication design: contents of information, legibility, number of colours used, style, usability (e.g. web design)

• Industrial design: contents of information (if any), functionality, ergonomics, usability

• Environmental design: types of spaces

Constraints

• Limit to the dimensions of the outcome

• Limited availability of the materials

• Site constraints (Environmental design)

• Folio submission deadline

In Design and Graphics, “purpose” of your design refers to:

• To identify

• To inform

• To advertise

• To promote

• To depict

• To teach

• To guide

• Context is where & how your possible outcomes will be seen by the audience. 

Possible presentation format is what you ‘might’ produce as a design response to the brief. 

If possible, use “could be” or “may be” to keep it open for any future changes. 

Choose the presentation formats that you envisage creating at the end of the folio.