Can you send me the latest version of our logo?
Build Mode™ Issue 09.2024
Tell me if this conversation sounds familiar…
Can you send me the latest version of our logo?
Sure. Which one?
The bright one, the one we tweaked for that proposal.
OK, the one with the slighter taller letters?
Yeah, the one that we rotated so it’d look better next to the client’s logo.
Oh, gotcha… I know the one!
[receives logo]
Ugh, no, this isn’t the right one!
Treating your logo, or any brand asset, as malleable material that can twist, stretch, and pull like Silly Putty isn’t doing your brand any favors. Conversations like this happen every day in organizations that haven’t established brand standards. To establish standards in your branding, what you need are brand guidelines.
What are brand guidelines?
There’s a misconception that brand guidelines are rules. They’re not.
Brand guidelines is a comprehensive resource that outlines components of the brand to communicate their reasoning and empower their execution.
It’s not a rulebook, with prescriptive instructions to be followed.
It’s a playbook, with strategies and methods that empower individuals to act on the brand’s behalf.
No matter the medium, or the audience, brand guidelines is a reference tool that everyone in your organization can access to maintain consistency and enhance the brand’s reputation and brand’s equity.
The brand guidelines I create typically have four sections:
Brand strategy – the internal principles of a brand
Brand identity – the visual expression of a brand
Brand messaging – the verbal expression of a brand
Brand applications – the touchpoints where strategy, identity, and messaging come together to deliver value to an audience
Let’s take a closer look into each section and see some examples down below.
Part 1: Brand strategy
The brand strategy section of a brand guidelines document details the four components of a strategy. For my projects, those are the purpose (the reason a brand exists), people (the audience), positioning (the differentiating factor), and personality (the characteristics of the brand). We begin the guidelines with strategy because it’s important that everyone in an organization, and even external collaborators, use the strategy as the core “why” behind their applications. By understanding the reasoning for why the brand is designed in such a way, all stakeholders can utilize the guidelines to execute on any brand touchpoint and communicate on behalf of the brand more effectively.
Part 2: Brand identity
The second part of the brand guidelines is all about the brand’s visual identity, which breaks down into the following components.
Logo:
The core of a brand identity is the logo. While the scenario in the introduction described one company’s logo going through several iterations willy-nilly, there should be one, primary logo. That’s not to say you can’t have variations on the logo for different contexts, a horizontal version, a vertical version, isolated wordmark, isolated symbol, color variations, black and white, and specifications on placement and sizing. The goal for this section is to define the conditions for logo usage so individuals understand which version to use and how to maintain its consistency for increased brand recognition.
Color Palette:
Your brand will have a color palette, designed to convey emotion, or set a particular mood, and expand your identity beyond its name and symbol, into an identifiable color or set of colors. Guidelines often include a primary color palette, secondary colors, and guidance on how to use a broader range of colors for specific needs, like charts or diagrams. You’ll ensure consistency in color usage by using color specifications. For example, RGB for digital interfaces, CMYK for printed materials, HEX for websites, and Pantone to match color across mediums.
Typography:
Type is the visual voice of your brand – it’s what your communication looks like. By limiting the number of typefaces you use – likely just two or three – you can establish a consistent communication style that your audience will recognize and remember. Your brand guidelines will detail which fonts to use for headlines, body text, and any special cases, as well as how typography should appear across different platforms. For example, consider which platforms you’ll be executing the brand on, and ensure you can match your printed and digital fonts to your website’s fonts (or find close alternatives).
Imagery:
The imagery section of your brand guidelines helps to establish a unique look and feel. This could include curated lifestyle photography, commissioned product photography, custom illustrations, iconography, patterns, textures, or any other visual element. The goal is to make your brand recognizable through imagery, even without a logo. For example, when it comes to photography, an architect might desire a certain lighting quality with stark contrast between lights and darks. A furniture designer might prefer their pieces on a neutral background with soft shadows. A real estate developer might want to have aerial photos of all their developments to show the scale of their assets. Whatever the approach, by defining how you approach imagery, you’ll establish predictability and recognition.
Part 3: Brand messaging
This section defines how a brand speaks to its audience. It includes tone of voice, key messages, and persona development, which can help guide communication across different contexts. For instance, a brand with an ‘adventure guide’ as a persona might adopt a tone that’s motivating, clear, and encouraging. Your guidelines also include evergreen messaging—those key phrases and statements that remain consistent over time, such as your brand’s elevator pitch, mission statement, or value propositions.
Part 4: Brand applications
The last section of the brand guidelines document is brand applications, where all of the elements come together – the strategy, the identity, and the messaging – to express the brand to others through touchpoints. You might have samples of applications like:
Stationery set
Pamphlets
Brochures
Proposals
Posters
Advertisements
Website pages
Social media posts
Promotional items
… basically, any application that serves as a vehicle to deliver value to your client or customer, and any potential future communication that might be required. Applications and examples of the brand in use across multiple contexts is important to illustrate so an internal team and external collaborators can effectively design and communicate for the brand.
Here are a few brand guidelines I've created at MUDEO and in past positions, where you can see representations of each of these parts and the contents within them.
Brand guidelines for Topograph
Brand guidelines for Forte
Brand guidelines for Rivermark
Brand guidelines for The Yards
Brand guidelines for 95 Saint
Why are brand guidelines important?
Without them, your brand’s communication becomes inconsistent, leading to mixed messages, confused prospects, and potentially, lost opportunities.
With brand guidelines, you achieve consistency (one of the 4C’s of brand effectiveness), the key to building a strong, recognizable brand. When your visual and verbal identity are used consistently across all platforms and touchpoints, it reinforces your brand identity in the minds of your audience. Over time, they form an impression of your brand that helps build trust and credibility.
With brand guidelines, you’re giving designers and marketers on your team flexibility to create and the structure to succeed. Remember, it’s a playbook, not a rulebook. By setting clear guard rails, brand applications can meet the criteria for being ‘on-brand’ while also allowing teams the freedom to adapt to new contexts.
With brand guidelines, you’ll never start with a blank canvas again. There’s nothing worse than staring at a blank page. Alongside your brand guidelines, your brand should have a toolkit, equipped with all of the assets within your guidelines that can be easily imported into the application you’re creating. This streamlines the creative process and reduces the potential for any ‘rogue’ brand executions.
What you can do nextHow to get up to speed on brand guidelines
Here are a few steps you can take to ensure your brand guidelines are up-to-date and effectively supporting your brand:
First:
Do you have brand guidelines?
If not, get started! Create a document with the sections listed above and start to standardize your brand’s core components.
Second:
Do you have all the essential elements within your set of brand guidelines?
If not, fill in any blanks with the elements you don’t have yet. Make sure to describe your strategy, document your identity, craft your messaging, and showcase the best applications.
Third:
Do you have your guidelines in an easily accessible location?
If not, ensure your brand guidelines are accessible to everyone in your organization and can be distributed to external collaborators. Your guidelines could be a digital document on a shared drive, uploaded to an online platform, or accessible within your company’s knowledge center. Most importantly, it should be easy to access, so it’s actually utilized as a daily resource.
Finally:
While brand guidelines are often considered a finished deliverable, consider them instead as a living document that evolves with your brand. (Not evolved so much that you never establish consistency, but evolving to respond to new applications, new products, or new markets that you enter). Use it. Review it. Refresh it as needed to ensure it remains relevant and resonates with your audience over the long-term.
I hope you’ll use some of these insights in your own organization to standardize your brand and drive greater brand equity.
And if you ever need it, this is an area where I can support you.
Maybe you need help establishing your first set of brand guidelines, or maybe you’ve strayed too far away from your existing guidelines, or maybe your organization has gone through change and they’re no longer serving your needs… whatever it may be, when you’re ready, feel free to get in touch.
That’s all for the September issue of Build Mode!
Thanks again for being here.
If you have any ideas to share, or questions to ask, reach out. I’m open to hearing your thoughts and making this most useful message in your inbox this week. If you think this might help a friend, feel free to forward it to them and encourage them to join us.
With summer behind us, it’s time to kick it back into gear. Let’s go!
Hope to talk soon!
Best.
Kenny Isidoro
See my latest on Instagram, LinkedIn, or feel free to book a call.
Rules were meant to be broken.
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