Building a successful brand requires consistency. You may have wondered how businesses are able to operate with multiple departments, divisions, and partners, on multiple platforms, and stay consistent in their look, tone, and voice. The answer is simple: brand guidelines.
What are brand guidelines
Brand guidelines are also commonly referred to as “brand standards,” a “brand book,” or a “style guide.” They’re such a powerful tool that they’re sometimes even referred to as a “brand bible.” Essentially, these guidelines are a set of rules that explain how an organization presents itself to the world – a reference tool to establish consistency in how the brand sounds, looks, and feels.
Brand guidelines provide rules for the visual portion of a brand’s identity such as:
Logo usage and acceptable variations
Brand color palette with a breakdown of appropriate usage for print, screen, and web
Typography specs and proper usage of type
Image and photography usage (if applicable) that showcases images that work with the brand
These guidelines can also include basic information about the brand such as an overview of your brand’s vision, mission, personality, core values, or tone of voice.
“The best and most successful brands are completely coherent. Every aspect of what they are and what they do reinforces everything else.”
– Wally Olins
Why are brand guidelines important
Think of your brand identity as your company’s personality. It signals to the world around you who you are and what you represent, so it is important to create brand guidelines to remove any ambiguity. Inconsistency can confuse customers but implementing brand guidelines helps your business communicate consistently and effectively across all teams and channels, which helps build customer trust.
Examples of
brand guidelines
DFW Airport lays out a simple color-coded “voice” section in its brand guidelines to keep tone of voice and messaging consistent.
Jones Soda Co. creates products that reflect the colors in their brand guidelines. The usage of three primary color IDs (CMYK, RGB, and Pantone) in their product design and marketing make their style cohesive and easy to identify.
Apple is iconic for its well-maintained brand. They can credit that to a detailed set of style guidelines for channel affiliates and retailers to follow.
In sum
No matter the scale of your organization, creating brand guidelines will give you a better sense of how to standardize your brand’s messaging to form a unique identity in the competitive marketplace. Green Apple Lane Design furnishes a Branding Guide with logo designs we create, or we can also create a Branding Guide for your company using your existing branding as well. Having these guidelines in place will help ensure everyone is using the brand’s fonts, logos, colors, and voice consistently and correctly.