Brand guidelines. We create them each time we build a brand… but how do we keep them engaging enough to be embraced company-wide instead of simply gathering dust on a shelf?
Guidelines are often seen as a necessary evil used to police creativity. We see them differently. To us, they are a creative starting point designed to inspire, not restrict. They inform how your brand looks, speaks, and acts, laying a foundation for everything you do daily.
As seasoned brand builders, we explain the underlying principles behind the brand and offer practical ways to use them to create marketing materials, campaigns, websites, and more. Our approach helps the people behind the brand take ownership and understand the ‘why’ rather than just the ‘how’.
Brand guidelines (sometimes called a ‘brand manual’ or ‘style guide’) are documentation that instructs and demonstrates how to apply branded assets correctly. A properly structured brand guidelines document gives practical advice on size and display elements such as logos, typefaces, and colours. It also outlines best practice examples to show how a visual system is constructed.
The role of brand guidelines is often underestimated. However, they are essential in designing consistent, ‘on-brand’ design. Guidelines help designers and brand builders to make decisions quickly and confidently without compromising the integrity of the overall visual system — which can be so easily forgotten when working with multiple contributors across many projects. The real advantage of brand guidelines is having everything documented in one place. This is sometimes referred to as a ‘brand bible’ or ‘brand book’ as it has all the information needed to stay on track. Another advantage of good brand guidelines is to prevent designers or marketers from going off-piste and creating their own versions of what they think a brand should be. Businesses spend a lot of time, money and energy throughout the branding process, so following a clearly defined set of rules is essential. As with other areas of brand design, consistency is key — and brand guidelines are essentially the rule book to help police this.
When dealing with multiple locations, languages, or suppliers, it can be time-consuming to communicate the specifics of a brand project, particularly if this forms part of an established workflow. For example, when creating new product expressions, a spirits brand will have the bottle sizes, shapes and material specified in a brand guidelines document, which contributors can easily refer to, avoiding the chance of human error or time constraints.
Recent examples of brand guidance work include the rebranding of Halley Stevensons, Edinburgh World Heritage and Grow Consultancy.
Specific product brand guidelines are necessary for businesses to create a distinctive, recognisable identity to stand out from the competition. This is increasingly important for technology brands as products can scale quickly and must be defined as brands. Guidance might cover topics such as how to talk about specific USPs, how products should be presented and in what circumstances. A range of finished applications will usually be defined to show ‘best practice’ examples. For example, various touchpoints such as packaging, advertising, or retail displays should be considered, as well as any printed material.
Digital design guidelines are an increasingly important documentation area that helps establish consistency, mainly when dealing with a large multinational organisation. Along with content standards and brand values, these guidelines often outline best practices for using the latest digital technologies, such as mobile responsiveness or animations. Digital design is an area that has evolved rapidly in recent years; it can be challenging to keep up-to-date without any guidance on what is expected from designers.
Brand guidelines assure the organisation that everything will be executed in a way that reflects its brand and company values.
Digital brand guidelines will also include direct advice on when and where to use specific elements such as typefaces, rules around accessibility and user experience design. For example, Google does a great job showing its design language online.
Print brand guidelines are a traditional area within the graphic design industry. They are aimed explicitly at brand designers creating printed touchpoints for a specific company or brand. This set of rules offers practical advice, such as the correct colour values for appropriate paper types, such as coated or uncoated, colour calibration for specific machines, image editing advice, and much more.
Print production is a complex area of brand design that requires explicit guidance. Without key indicators to follow, a piece of print can stray off-brand through no fault of the designer. For example, specific colours can react differently to different papers. Therefore, these values must be tested beforehand, with the findings captured and displayed in a guidance document.
As we’ve identified above, brand guidelines are the cornerstone of a consistent and cohesive brand identity. They serve as a roadmap for how your brand should look, speak and act across all platforms and touchpoints. When done well, practical brand guidelines ensure your brand remains recognisable, professional, and aligned with its core values. As a branding agency, here’s how we create effective brand guidelines that are both practical and impactful.
Before diving into the specifics of design or tone, establish the foundational elements of your brand. These include:
These elements provide context for every decision outlined in your guidelines, ensuring consistency in all future branding efforts.
Your visual identity is the most immediate way people recognise and connect with your brand. Key components to include in your guidelines are:
Showcasing these elements with examples helps ensure they’re used correctly, even by external collaborators.
Consistency in communication is just as important as visuals. Your brand guidelines should define:
These sections ensure that all written content—from social media posts to press releases—sounds like it comes from the same source.
Practicality is key to ensuring your brand guidelines are followed. To make them user-friendly:
If your guidelines are too complex or challenging to follow, they are are less likely to be followed, leading to inconsistencies.
Brands evolve, and your guidelines should, too. Review and update your brand guidelines regularly to reflect new goals, trends, or lessons learned. For example, if you introduce a new product line or expand into a new market, your guidelines should adapt to support these changes.
Your brand guidelines are a resource for everyone interacting with your brand—designers, marketers, agencies, and even internal teams. Host them in an easily accessible format, such as a PDF or an online brand portal, so they’re always available when needed.
Practical brand guidelines are essential for building a cohesive and recognisable brand. By outlining your brand’s visual, verbal, and strategic elements in an easy-to-use format, you empower your team and partners to maintain consistency across all touchpoints. This strengthens your brand identity and builds trust and recognition with your audience.
Investing time in creating clear and practical brand guidelines pays off in the long run, ensuring your brand stays true to its identity while adapting to new opportunities and challenges.
