The single biggest factor in how smoothly a project goes isn't budget or timeline or tools. It's how prepared the client is when we start. Clients who come to the first conversation with a clear sense of their goals, their constraints, and what they already have in hand consistently get better results in less time. This page tells you what that preparation looks like.
None of this needs to be perfect before we talk. But the more of it you've thought through, the more our early conversations can focus on the work rather than the setup.
Know What You're Trying to Accomplish
This sounds obvious, but it's worth being deliberate about. A lot of projects start with a deliverable in mind (a website, a video, a course) without a clear picture of what that deliverable is supposed to do. Those two things aren't the same.
Before we meet, try to answer these questions as specifically as you can:
- Who is this for? Describe your audience as precisely as possible. Not "potential customers." Who, specifically? What do they already know? What are they skeptical of? What do they need to walk away believing or able to do?
- What does success look like? If this project works exactly as intended, what happens? More bookings, a trained team, a stronger brand presence? The more concrete you can be, the more I can design toward it.
- What's the must-have and what's the nice-to-have? Every project has non-negotiables and things that would be great if we get to them. Knowing which is which helps both of us make better decisions when tradeoffs come up.
Gather Your Brand Assets
If your organization has a visual identity (a logo, brand colors, fonts, a style guide), I need access to it before anything gets designed or produced. Working without these almost always means rework later, which costs both of us time.
What to pull together
- Logo files. Vector formats (SVG, EPS, AI) are ideal. If you only have a PNG, that's fine, but the higher the resolution the better. Bonus points if you have versions for light and dark backgrounds.
- Brand guidelines. If you have a brand guide, even a basic one, share it. It tells me your colors, typography, and any rules about how your identity should and shouldn't be used.
- Existing materials. Brochures, decks, previous websites, social profiles: anything that reflects how your brand has looked in the past. Even if we're changing the direction, it's useful context.
If you don't have formal brand assets, that's worth knowing upfront too. It might mean building some foundational identity decisions into the scope, and it's better to plan for that than discover it midway through.
Take Stock of What You Already Have
Most clients come to a project with more usable material than they realize, along with a few critical gaps they haven't identified yet. Knowing both before we start lets us scope accurately and avoid surprises.
Content and copy
Do you have written content that's ready to use, or will it need to be written from scratch? For web projects, this includes page copy, team bios, and service descriptions. For instructional design, this means existing training materials, process documentation, and subject matter expert notes. If content needs to be developed, that's a real part of the project scope, not an afterthought.
Photos and video
If you have existing photography or video you'd like to use, gather it and think about whether it's actually good enough to represent you. Old, low-resolution, or off-brand visuals can undermine an otherwise strong project. Now is the time to decide what stays, what gets replaced, and what needs to be shot or produced from scratch.
Reference and inspiration
Find three to five examples of work you admire, from competitors, from other industries, from anywhere, and be ready to say what you like about each one. Do the same for things you actively don't want. Strong likes and dislikes are both useful. "I don't know, I'll know it when I see it" is the most expensive creative brief you can give.
A client who knows what they don't want is halfway to knowing what they do want. Both are worth articulating.
Prepare the Access You'll Need to Share
Almost every project requires access to something: an account, a platform, a server, a tool. Tracking down credentials mid-project is one of the most common sources of delay, and it's entirely avoidable.
Common access needs by service
- Web Design: Hosting account, domain registrar, existing CMS login, Google Analytics or Search Console, any third-party integrations (payment processors, booking systems, email platforms).
- Instructional Design: LMS admin access, any authoring tools already in use, subject matter expert availability and scheduling.
- Photography / Videography: Location access and any required permits, talent or model release requirements, wardrobe and prop logistics.
If you're not sure what access will be needed for your specific project, ask during our first conversation and I'll give you a specific list. It's better to track these things down before we're waiting on them.
Get the Right People Involved Early
One of the most reliable ways for a project to go sideways is to have a stakeholder appear late in the process with opinions that override everything that's been approved up to that point. It happens more often than it should, and it's preventable.
Before we start, identify who has final say on the work. Not who will provide input. Who can actually approve it. If that person needs to be in the kickoff conversation, get them there. If they need to sign off at specific milestones, build that into the timeline. A revision that comes from an uninvolved decision-maker discovering the project for the first time is not a standard revision. It restarts work that was already done.
I'm not saying stakeholders are a problem. Input from the people who know the business is valuable. I'm saying that input needs to happen at the right times, from the right people, and those things should be sorted out before production begins.
Know Your Constraints
Budget and timeline are obvious ones. But there are other constraints that matter just as much and often go unspoken until they create friction:
- Hard deadlines. If there's a launch date, a board meeting, a trade show, or any external event that the project must be ready for, tell me at the start. Everything gets planned backward from that date.
- Legal or compliance requirements. Some organizations have specific rules about how their brand can be represented, what can be filmed or photographed, or what disclosures are required on certain types of content. If any of those apply to you, I need to know upfront.
- Internal approval processes. If deliverables need to go through a legal review or an executive sign-off before they can be approved, build that into your timeline expectations. I can't control how fast internal reviews move, but I can plan around them if I know they exist.
You Don't Have to Have Everything Figured Out
Pre-production exists precisely so that open questions can get answered before they become problems. You're not expected to walk into the kickoff with every decision made. You are expected to engage honestly: tell me what you know, what you're unsure about, and what constraints you're working within.
The clients who get the most out of working together aren't the ones who have everything figured out. They're the ones who communicate clearly, respond when they're needed, and trust the process. The preparation described on this page is really just a head start on that.