Communicate with clarity. A brief is essentially a means of communication between the client and the design team. As such, the client should give careful consideration to how the briefs contents are presented, worded and visualized. That sounds obvious enough, but in practice briefing documents are often badly written reportsfull of jargon, clichs and unintelligible technical textsand the risk is that such reports do not get the clients message across to the design team. A major part of the briefs contents is factual and calls for a very clear and concise presentation. It concerns information about the projects size and budget and, later in the process, all sorts of technical requirements such as temperature levels and room sizes. This kind of quantitative information is best presented in a systematic way in neatly organized tables and diagrams, combined with bullet lists that sum up the essentials. But not all briefing information lends itself to being presented in spreadsheets and bullet lists. The strategic brief in particular tends to contain information of a rather soft nature, like the clients strategic vision, architectural aspirations or the desired user experience in the building. In this case it can be productive to use narrative techniquesshort descriptions of the daily lives of users, anecdotes and quotes from interviews, or short stories about the future use of the building. The power of such formats is that they can give the reader a rich and in-depth understanding of the users and clients expectations and ideas.Last but not least, the briefs communication value can be improved by the use of visualizations. Diagrams and infographics can be great means of communicating factual data, especially to architects because they often tend to be visual thinkers rather than text readers. Furthermore, it is possible to use sketches and reference images to explain subjective expectations concerning the building design. Using such formats is not just a matter of making the brief look nice, but rather of making the brief an effective means of communication. Recommendations-Use plain language, avoid the use of jargon and clichs. Avoid voluminous, dense documents, which discourage reading.-Reserve time for editing and layout of briefing documents. For large projects, it can be worthwhile bringing in a communications expert.-Use tables, bullet lists and spreadsheets to communicate factual information.-Use narrative techniques such as stories and interviews to convey qualitative information.-Use infographics to visualize the briefs central ideas and concepts.-Provide a glossary of technical terms and organization-specific acronyms.-Dont forget to add an executive summary to the brief that sums up the essential facts and ideas.