Brand guidelines & why you NEED them

Brand guide­lines serve as a pow­er­ful tool for your busi­ness to help you estab­lish brand con­ti­nu­ity. They help you estab­lish your voice, per­son­al­i­ty and visu­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion struc­ture. You sim­ply can’t main­tain a brand with con­sis­ten­cy with­out these. It’s like walk­ing in a dark cave with­out a flashlight!

Peo­ple buy because they feel con­nect­ed to WHY you do things, even more than price, sales, or mar­ket­ing tac­tics. So brand guide­lines aren’t just an out­line you throw together—they have a strat­e­gy behind them: every com­po­nent should support/communicate your “WHY you do what you do”.

Icon­ic brands like Apple, Tar­get, Coca Cola, Pep­si and Nike, to name a few, have devel­oped strict guide­lines that helped them achieve a rec­og­niz­able brand. They have imple­ment­ed a clear vision with their brand’s con­ti­nu­ity — visu­al iden­ti­ty, dig­i­tal pres­ence and mar­ket­ing con­sis­ten­cy — and how each com­po­nent rep­re­sents their WHY.

Your brand guide­lines serve as road map to achieve and main­tain con­sis­ten­cy as your com­pa­ny grows. Now sure what to include? Below are 5 of the most impor­tant ele­ments you need. To help you visu­al­ize, we’ve includ­ed exam­ples from the brand guide­lines Nicte cre­at­ed for Dogs on Deployment.

Brand guidelines and why you need them

1. Brand archetype

What is your brand’s per­son­al­i­ty? How will your brand show up in the world?

This needs to be reflect­ed across all your branding—from visu­al to verbal.

2. Brand voice

The tone and choice of words to con­vey your cho­sen image. Some are fun, some hip, patri­ot­ic — what voice are you using?
Are there com­mon phrases/words you need to use?

Know­ing what your brand voice is will help you main­tain con­sis­ten­cy and stay true to who you are. It’s far eas­i­er to be your­self than to read prompts or sound like a robot.

3. Brandmark (Logo) guidelines

How small can you make the logo before it presents leg­i­bil­i­ty issues? How much sur­round­ing space from the logo to con­tent do you need? What back­grounds or col­or over­lays cre­ate eye­strain with your logo? What are the approved col­ors you can use on your logo?

These ques­tions are essen­tial to main­tain­ing con­sis­ten­cy for your brand. Not know­ing the opti­mal size for your logo can be detrimental—especially if you have peo­ple in your team man­ag­ing your brand. Social media posts are one of the most com­mon areas where you can see lack of con­sis­ten­cy. A brandmark/logo may be placed in dif­fer­ent sizes, areas, and even use a bunch of dif­fer­ent col­ors. This actu­al­ly harms your brand and the abil­i­ty to forge brand recog­ni­tion. So make sure you define the lim­i­ta­tions for these elements.

4. Color and typography

What spe­cif­ic type­face, or font are you only allowed to use?
What, if any, are the font vari­a­tions you can use, and for what types of products/projects?
What are the approved col­or val­ues (RGB, CMYK, and PMS) for your brand?

This is incred­i­bly impor­tant to under­stand. Espe­cial­ly in cre­at­ing hier­ar­chy with your con­tent. Make sure you cre­ate a struc­ture with your typog­ra­phy from head­lines to para­graph type. If you want to learn more about this, be sure to check out our Build a Brand You Love course.

5. Approved visual elements

What para­me­ters have you set — or do you want to set — on use of pat­terns, addi­tion­al design ele­ments, pho­tog­ra­phy and video style?
And what tem­plates must be used for par­tic­u­lar cam­paigns or dig­i­tal media?

Hav­ing set these para­me­ters will allow you to cre­ate con­sis­ten­cy, yet devel­op unique aspects to your brand. In the exam­ples below, you can see how each design remains part of the sys­tem, yet it’s unique in its own way.

No mat­ter the size of your com­pa­ny, brand guide­lines are essen­tial to estab­lish­ing cred­i­bil­i­ty & recog­ni­tion. If you use a rain­bow of fonts, buck­ets of col­or or fan­cy lin­go with­out a clear inten­tion, no one will remem­ber your brand, prod­uct or ser­vice! This con­fu­sion waters down your voice, per­son­al­i­ty and visu­al communication.

Remem­ber: hav­ing an inten­tion and strat­e­gy is essen­tial for success.