Brand Guidelines

What are brand guidelines?

A brand guidelines document (which you may also hear called a brand guidelines template, brand standards, brand book or style guide) contains the rules for the design and composition for all your brand’s collateral. It exists to ensure the consistency, continuity and correct usage of brand artefacts across all channels.

Your guidelines allow you to create an emotional bond between your brand and your audience, using regularity, familiarity and repetition.

Brand guidelines will typically include core items, such as:

• An overview of the brand history, values, mission statement and goals (as defined by brand development)
• Rules on logo usage in various scenarios – including what not to do with it
• Colour palette breakdown – including different colour space references for print and digital
• Typography usage for headings, body copy and peripheral items

Your brand guidelines contain all the technicalities related to your brand identity. Once you have formulated your brand identity, it’s your brand book that brings it to life. Your brand standards will govern the look of your website, marketing materials, retail premises, staff uniforms and anything else that portrays your business.

Case Study: Brand Guidelines for Stem Cell Fairy.

Why you need brand guidelines for your business

The most successful companies in the world have long and exhaustive brand guidelines. Their brand is the most valuable part of their business, more important than what they actually sell, so it’s worth protecting.

As mentioned before, brand guidelines are your way to enforce your brand identity. Whether your brand is professional or playful, whether you’re targeting CEOs or 5-year old girls, your brand rules crystallise how you will create that effect. For example, if you have decided your brand identity will be serious and professional, your guidelines document may set out a colour palette of dark blues and silvers, rather than bright pink.

The goal of branding is to create brand recognition, so your audience knows your brand when they see it. Moreover, you want them to have your brand in their minds, even when they’re not interacting with you. Your brand guidelines set out all the rules regarding the consistency of your brand, which is essential when aiming for brand recognition. If you saw a McDonald’s logo, but the yellow was slightly lighter than usual, you would probably notice. Guidelines are there to ensure that doesn’t happen.

As your business grows, your brand guidelines become even more invaluable. They show your employees how to use your brand in the right way. It makes the essence of your brand accessible to everyone in your company, creating accountability around how it is used.

How to create brand guidelines

Creating brand guidelines is a technical process that can be time-consuming. You need a deep understanding of your business and your audience, as well as some specialist knowledge around graphic design, typography and principles of branding.

Brand Guidelines for The Healthy Back Bag.

Here are five things you must think about as you design your brand document:

• What is your brand story? – Think about the origin of your business and how it defines your values and mission
• How should your logo be displayed? – Think about a minimum size, acceptable variations and how much space it should sit in
• Technical aspects of your brand colours – Every colour you use must be defined in RGB, CMYK and Pantone formats
• Typography – What fonts will you use in your business? Consider rules around style, minimum sizes and bold type
• Images – as well as your logo, are their other images or styles that you use in your branding?

If you need some expert help, talk to March.