If you have a business, you obviously need a brand. If you have a brand and you want it to be consistent, you need brand guidelines! It’s as simple as that.
If you’re thinking “That’s something I need!”, please read on. We’ve got you covered!
What are brand guidelines?
Brand guidelines are essentially a set of rules to show how to use your brand properly. They’re for your designer, your marketing department… anyone who uses your brand really. We suggest you make sure that every employee at your business is aware of your brand guidelines and has access to it. Without this you’ll find your brand drifts off course over time, with colours and fonts changing, until it’s eventually diluted or worse, beyond recognition.
Brand guidelines typically outline the details of the brand, go through some do’s and don’ts, and make sure all of your print work, marketing and general branding is consistent with your overall message.
People often think that they don’t need to follow brand guidelines if they are in a role that doesn’t require design skills. However even writing a letter can portray your brand negatively if the wrong font is used, or the header is incorrectly put together. A brand guideline will stop this sort of thing happening.
What goes into your brand guidelines?
Brand guidelines are almost like your business brand Bible and if designed correctly, will contain everything you need.
Typography
Here you will find all of the fonts included in your brand and how to use them in terms of letter spacing and line height. Brand guidelines outline heading fonts and body fonts, as well as showing when to use the appropriate letter case.
Without this, people tend to estimate at a similar font, or use inappropriate font sizes which can look, at best, unprofessional.
Colour Palette
This page in your brand guideline showcases the main colours used in your logo, along with any secondary complementary colours and where they can be used. In order to ensure you’re using the exact colour, it should include the colour names and codes for different uses such as CMYK, RGB and HEX, minimising the likelihood of mistakes happening.
Without colour values being defined, it’s very unlikely they’ll remain consistent. We had a client that started off with a dark purple and by the time they came for help, it had been printed as a royal blue. Not a good look!
Logo Usage
Every logo and brand is different and will require different spacing and sizing when it’s used. If your logo requires space around it then your brand guideline should state how much you need to leave, known as a clearance zone. You may find that your guideline also provides you with a list of ways you shouldn’t use the logo such as adding a drop shadow or rearranging the order of the elements within the logo.
Logo Variations
Your brand could contain other formats and styles to use depending on the scenario that the brand is in. For example, we have different versions of our logo, depending on the service we’re showing.
Some logos may be responsive to the device or size that they have to fill, so you don’t always have to squeeze in the full company logo.
Brand Imagery
Some brand guidelines may state how your imagery should be processed which can be important for companies who require photography. This page may show some example imagery to follow in order to maintain consistency.
These are just the typical features you may have as part of your brand guidelines. Sometimes more detail is required for a larger organisation if it’s brand is more in depth and applicable to more scenarios, whereas smaller businesses may only include the basics such as colours and typography.
So… Do you need a brand guideline for your business?
If you’re now convinced that you need to get a brand guideline in place, why not let our design team at F8 get it all sorted?
Contact us on info@f8creates.com with your brief or take a look at our portfolio to see some of the brands we’ve had the pleasure of designing.
