How to Create Brand Guidelines? A comprehensive Guide

Did you know keeping your brand consistent can boost your revenue? It’s true!

Your brand is more than just a logo—it’s how you show the world what you stand for. Consistent branding helps build trust and creates a strong emotional connection with your customers. In fact, data from Blogging Lift reports that 82% of customers choose to buy from brands they feel connected to.

So, how do you ensure your brand stays consistent and attracts loyal customers?

The key is creating a strong brand guide. Don’t know how it works? In this article, we’ll explore brand guidelines and how to create them to give your brand a clear and recognizable identity.

What are Brand Guidelines?

Brand principles or guidelines are rules you create to communicate your brand’s values to the world. These guidelines help your business define who you are, what you do, and what you believe in.

Think of it as a book that brings together your brand’s look, feel, and personality. It covers everything from your visual style to the tone of your messaging.

The goal is to keep your brand’s identity consistent and unique across all platforms. In fact, a study by Marq found that 85% of companies use brand guidelines to boost consistency. This way, no matter where customers come across your brand, they’ll immediately recognize and trust it.

Is Brand Guide the Same as Brand Identity?

You may wonder whether a branding guideline is the same as a brand identity, as both seem to serve a similar purpose. However, the answer is no.

So, what’s the difference?

A brand guide includes clearly defined standards for visual and other elements that represent your brand. And this representation is what becomes your brand identity!

In short, they’re connected, but brand guidelines are essentially the roadmap for building the identity you want, helping your brand stand out in the marketplace.

Why and When to Create a Brand Guide?

A business without branding guidelines is like a team without a playbook—disorganized, inconsistent, and unsure of how to operate.

When branding rules are in place, all your teams operate consistently across all channels, whether through the website, social media, or newsletters. This gives your customers a familiar environment where they feel confident about buying from you.

Let’s look at the key reasons to create a branding guide.

1. You’re Building a Website Design

Let’s say you’re opening an online store or creating a digital platform to expand your local business. Essentially, you only need a website to show your products to the customers.

Think of brand rules as the blueprint for designing the website. With all the standards for your brand’s style and voice in place, your website will not just look good—it will truly reflect your brand.

2. You’re Working with External Partners

Is your business expanding collaboration with people outside of your organization? If so, your brand manual should include guidelines for co-partners.

Why? While your team knows your brand inside and out, people outside your organization won’t be as familiar. For example, if you hire a freelance copywriter, they won’t know the right tone to use without clear guidelines. They might write in a casual or playful tone, while your brand is more formal.

The same goes for graphic designers. They need to understand your brand’s color and style and how to properly use your logo to ensure everything stays consistent with your brand’s message.

3. You’re Collaborating with Other Entities

Do you have a partner company, a sponsor, or a sub-brand? That’s another reason to define how these entities should represent your brand in your corporate style guide. Let’s take an example to understand it better.

Say you’re collaborating with another business to promote your brand. They must use your logo and other branding elements in their marketing. Without clear guidelines, they might use the wrong colors or place the logo in a way that contradicts your brand’s message.

This will damage your brand’s reputation and credibility. Therefore, you must include clear rules about all your branding assets and how to use them correctly.

What to Include in Your Brand Guidelines?

Your brand book should include rules about text style and visuals and showcase how to use them properly. The standards you define should be specific while leaving room for any changes you wish to make later.

Here are some essential elements you should highlight in your brand toolkit.

• Brand Essence: What are your brand’s mission, vision, and values? Include your brand’s history, character, and targeted market.
• Logo: Your logo is your brand mark, representing your business visually. Include rules about sizes, colors, and variations, as well as examples of how to use them and how not to.
• Color Palette: Include primary and accent colors that best complement your brand personality. Also, provide guidelines for using these colors.
• Typography: What fonts does your brand use, and where do you use each variation? Include size guides and visual examples of how to use them.
• Imagery: Your brand’s imagery consists of photos, illustrations, icons, and graphics. Include details about their style and how to source them.
• Voice and Tone: Clear details about how to speak on behalf of the brand. Phrases to use or avoid and the delivery tone, whether fun, youthful, or professional.
• Audience: What type of customers are you selling to? This will guide your content creation so it resonates with the audience.

Source – Fullstop

Knowing what to include in a design guide gives you a clear roadmap to creating your brand standards. Don’t know where to start? Let’s guide you through it step by step!

How Do You Create a Style Guide for Your Brand?

Effective brand guidelines are clear and easy to digest. Anyone involved in communicating your brand, whether the CEO, marketing manager or intern, should be able to understand them

If you don’t know how to create them, here are the simple steps to creating a brand playbook for your business.

1. Define The Essence of Your Brand

Brand essence is the foundation of your brand. It shapes how customers see and feel about your brand.

Think of it like the first impression you get when meeting someone. You might find them friendly or confident. Your brand essence gives off a similar vibe. It’s the lasting feeling that sticks with customers and influences how they see your brand in every interaction.

For example, Nike’s brand essence is “Authentic Athletic Performance.” This means they aim to inspire athletes to be their best. It guides how they talk about their products and connect with customers.

Source – Spellbrand

Things to Consider When Defining Your Brand Essence

Brand essence is the unique combination of your brand’s mission, values, vision, and purpose. Here are some questions that can help you define it:

• How should people feel when they interact with you?
• What principles guide everything you do?
• What makes you different from competing brands?
• What promise are you making to your customers?
• What’s the lasting impression you want to leave?
• What is your brand’s personality?
• Who is your target audience, and what do they value most?

Once you have your brand essence down, it will help you define how your brand should be presented in written and visual language, such as logos.

2. Include Brand Logo Guidelines

When you think about Apple, the bitten apple logo immediately comes to mind. Similarly, the swoosh is Nike’s logo.

Like any great brand, your logo is your brand’s unique visual identity. It should be easy to recognize and understand, but more importantly, it should align well with your brand’s essence.

Your logo guidelines will ensure that your brand mark remains consistent across all marketing materials. These rules can help train your team and collaborators about how to use it—as well as avoid mistakes that may affect your company’s image.

How Do You Create a Brand Logo Guide?

Here are some essential things to include in a comprehensive logo guide.

• Describe the Logo: A short statement describing your logo’s appearance.
• Specify Primary Logo: The main logo of your brand that sets the foundation for other variations.
• Include Secondary logo: A simplified version of the primary logo designed for smaller spaces.
• The Color Variations: Recommended color variations across different mediums and formats.
• Size and Spacing: Minimum and maximum allowed and how much space to leave around your logo.
• How to Use the Logo: Provide examples that show when and how to use your logo in different formats.

Source – Meta

3. Set the Brand Voice and Tone

Your brand voice is the unique personality your company uses in its communications. For a brand voice to be compelling, it should be consistent and true to your brand’s identity and values.

But what about the tone? Is it the same thing as brand voice?

Not quite! Unlike voice, your brand’s tone is the overall vibe and mood of your communications that may change depending on the situation.

Margaret Pilarski explains it well in the Shopify blog:

“Your voice is constant. Your brand should always sound like your brand, regardless of the channel or situation. Tone, on the other hand, is how your voice adapts to different situations. For example, the tone you use with a customer who’s just made a sale is different from how you’d speak to a frustrated customer.”

– Margaret Pilarski, Head of Strategy at Outline

Once you set your brand voice and tone, they’ll guide everything from your website copy to your product packaging. That’s why it’s essential to set clear brand expression guidelines—so everyone on your team knows what works and what doesn’t.

Source – eCommerce Fastlane

4. The Color Palette of Your Brand

What color comes to mind when you think of Facebook? Most likely, it’s that exact shade of blue from the logo and interface.

Colors have the power to build a deeper connection with your customers. In fact, a survey by Looka shows that brand colors can evoke certain emotions in the audience.

Reboot also found that 91% of people can recognize Google just from its brand colors. Plus, 78% can recall the primary color of a logo, and 43% can remember the brand’s name just 10 minutes after seeing the logo.

Clearly, colors can greatly affect how your customers associate with your brand. Therefore, your brand book should specify every color your brand uses.

What to Include in Your Brand Color Guidelines

• One or two primary colors that define your brand.
• One or two secondary or accent colors that you use with primary colors.
• Neutral colors for the background and footer sections.
• Text color with shades based on different percentages of pure black color.
• Color modes for web and print materials to ensure consistency.
• Specific color codes such as HEX, RGP, CMYK, and Pantone.

Source – Natsumi Nishizumi

5. Fonts and Where to Use Them

Did you know fonts can affect people just as much as colors? According to a study by Monotype, the right font choice can influence emotions and even increase positive responses by 13%.

The fonts you use can play a huge part in representing your brand and how you communicate your message. Your branding guidelines will include all the fonts used in its written language—with specific rules for font types and where and how to use them.

Things to Consider for Setting Brand Font Guidelines

• How many fonts will you use? Primary, secondary, accent fonts, etc.
• What primary fonts will represent your brand’s core identity?
• What font variations are for headlines, subheadings, body, and taglines?
• What is the minimum and maximum sizing you allow?
• What type of audience are you communicating with?

If you use custom fonts, add specific information about accessing and using them.

6. Additional Visual Style Guide

Does your brand use styling elements other than logos, fonts, or colors? If so, you should include dedicated sections for these. Use examples to show how to use these elements—and how not to.

Other elements that you can include in your branding guide include:

• Photography: What should the image tone, aesthetics, and subject matter be?
• Graphic Elements: Shapes, icons, textures, and how to use them.
• Brand Templates: Layouts for business cards and letterheads.
• Social Media Guidelines: How to apply the brand across social platforms.

Inspiring Brand Guideline Examples to Get You Started

Now that you know what to do, you’re ready to set brand standards to give your business its unique personality. To make things even easier, here are some famous brand guideline examples to kickstart your creativity.

1. Netflix

Netflix has dedicated brand guidelines available on its brand site. While the platform gives open access to its logo usage guidelines, you need to request access to obtain complete brand assets.

What sets these guidelines apart is using multiple visual examples to showcase how to use the Netflix symbol and wordmark and how not to. Netflix also provides clear instructions on how their partners should use the logo on marketing materials.

2. TikTok

TikTok’s brand book is publicly available for everyone to explore. It includes guidelines about the platform’s logo, color, typography, and co-branding. Starting from the brand’s mission statement, the guide proceeds to utilize animations explaining the platform’s design system.

The guidelines also explore how to use the TikTok logo across different types of communications. Another cool thing about the brand playbook is that you can download the core brand elements directly from the guide instead of using external sources.

3. Trustpilot

Trustpilot’s brand guide is a one-stop resource for all your branding needs. It offers clear guidelines for visuals, written content, and downloadable assets like logos, icons, and videos. You’ll also find instructions on how to use each item correctly.

Some standout features include localization style guides, which help you tailor brand materials for different markets. There are also co-branding guidelines for businesses featuring Trustpilot reviews and ratings in their marketing.

Key Takeaways About Brand Guidelines

If you want to give your brand a distinct identity, setting up brand guidelines is a great first step. These guidelines provide clear direction for your teams and external partners on how to build customer trust.

Start by defining what your brand is and what you believe in. This will be the foundation of your brand design guidelines. With a plan that fits your business needs, you can make your operations more consistent and give your brand a personality that is uniquely yours!