Guides /
What should brand guidelines include?
The essential sections of a useful set of brand guidelines and how to make sure your team and suppliers actually use them.
Brand guidelines are the instructions that keep a brand consistent once the designers have gone home. They are used by your team, printers, web developers, photographers and anyone else who produces something in your name.
The best guidelines are short enough to be read and specific enough to settle questions. Here is what they should cover.
The brand in brief
Open with a page or two on what the brand stands for: its purpose, who it is for, its positioning and its personality. This gives every rule that follows a reason, which makes people far more likely to follow it.
Logo
- Each version of the logo and when to use it
- Clear space and minimum sizes
- Approved colour versions, including on dark and photographic backgrounds
- Examples of what not to do, such as stretching, recolouring or adding effects
Colour
List the primary and secondary colours with their values for screen (HEX and RGB) and print (CMYK and, where needed, Pantone). Show the proportions too. A palette that is mostly neutral with one accent looks very different from one where every colour is used equally.
Typography
Name the typefaces, the weights in use and where each one belongs: headings, body text, captions. Include fallback fonts for email and documents where the brand fonts are not available.
Imagery
Describe the style of photography and illustration with examples. Cover subject matter, lighting, colour treatment and what to avoid. This section often does more for consistency than the logo rules do.
Tone of voice
Explain how the brand sounds, with before and after examples. A few clear principles, such as "plain, warm and confident", are more useful than a long list of adjectives. Include any words the brand always or never uses.
Applications and templates
Show the brand applied to the things people actually make: social posts, presentations, letters, signage and email signatures. Where possible, provide editable templates rather than pictures of them. Templates are the single most effective way to keep a brand consistent.
Making sure they are used
- Keep them as a short PDF or web page that is easy to find and share
- Put the logo files, fonts and templates in one shared folder linked from the guidelines
- Name one person responsible for answering brand questions
- Review them once a year and update anything that has drifted
We create guidelines and templates as part of our brand identity work, written for the people who will use them every day.
