Brand guidelines, or brand standards or style guides, are the rules and guidelines that govern how your brand is presented across all marketing materials and touchpoints. The guidelines are a framework for consistency and clarity in your brand’s visual identity, tone of voice and messaging.
This will help you build a strong, credible brand for your customers. The best way to define your brand positioning and make it easy for others to copy is to create a visual brand style guide. Having all your company assets in one place saves time and gives everyone in the business the ability to tell your brand story.
This article by FOR® summarises everything you need to know about developing brand guidelines. We’ll cover logo and visual identity, tone of voice and brand imaging. We’ll also give you tips and best practices for designing and writing your brand style guide and how to roll it out and maintain it.
What are Brand Guidelines?
Brand guidelines help ensure that your brand is portrayed accurately in a consistent manner across all communication materials, be it digital and print media, advertising, and PR. With branding guidelines, one can develop trust and credibility with customers, differentiate from competitors, and increase brand recognition.
The brand guide will again save time and resources by providing a clear line on how to use brand elements. In conclusion, guidelines for branding are such an important cornerstone of building a successful and memorable brand that will attract and retain the chosen target audience.
You may be able to run your business fine without creating brand guidelines, but if you want to grow your brand and team in the future, this is something whose importance cannot be overstated.
Brand Guideline Components
Not all of these elements will apply to your brand, but we have included most of those common across a wide range of brand guidelines.
Logo and Visual Identity
Your logo and visual identity are the most recognizable and visible elements of your brand and thus should be present in your brand guidelines. The guideline must clarify the appropriate way to use your logo and visual identity across all marketing channels and touchpoints.
Logo
These guidelines should call out your logo treatment: size, placement, and any of the rules that are to be followed for its use in various contexts. Perhaps there’s a strict measure of its size or colour on social media, while on printed material, it just needs to abide by a certain colour scheme or hit a minimum size.
Color Palette
Your colour palette guidelines should detail the colours to be used primary, secondary, or any other colour restriction in the visual identity of your brand. Consistency is key in all marketing materials that a brand publishes, and this will show how these colours should apply in different contexts.
Typefaces
Another crucial section to be included in your brand guidelines is the typefaces, as they are part of the look feel and tone of voice of your brand. Specify the fonts to be used in the guidelines, how to apply them, and any formatting rules that need to be adhered to.
Brand Voice
Your brand voice is the personality and language of your brand and forms a part of your brand guidelines.
Tone and Style
Your tone and style guidelines should include the personality and tone of the brand’s communication. It should indicate the tone to be used with different kinds of communication for instance, what tone to take when posting on social media, sending emails, or doing customer service
Messaging Guidelines
Your messaging guidelines should outline how to communicate your brand’s key messages and value props. What messages to say to your target audience and what to avoid saying?
Vocabulary and Tone of Voice
Your words and tone guidelines should cover the specific words and phrases to use in your brand’s communication. What words and phrases are core to your brand’s tone and personality and what to avoid? What level of formality and language to use for different types of communication?
Brand Imaging
Brand imaging involves using all sorts of visual elements that build a cohesive, consistent, and recognizable brand, involving the use of photography and imagery, graphic design, video, and animation.
Photography and Imagery
Photography and imagery play a crucial part in brand imaging since such means can be used to convey the values of the brand and the message in a powerful and emotive way. A brand should use professional, high-quality images that are consistent with the overall visual identity and message.
Graphic Design
Graphic design also plays an important role in creating imaging for brands, including their created designs for logos, and icons, among others, bringing out the brand identity. This has to be reflected consistently in all the documents and platforms, so it is coherent with the general brand visual identity and its message.
Video and Animation
Video and animation facilitate brand communication and interaction. Brand videos demonstrate how products are used, services offered, the story associated with the brand, and the emotional interaction of customers with the brand. Animation can also be applied to bringing forth beautiful graphics and visual effects, further reiterating a given brand’s message
Conclusion
Your brand is the most valuable asset in your business. Creating and maintaining branding guidelines will see you through to a solid and consistent brand. By defining your brand’s identity, personality, positioning, and promise, and establishing guiding lines around key elements such as your logo, voice, and imaging, you can truly create something consistent and memorable for your target audience.
Remember to create guidelines that are simple, accessible, and attractive to the eye of all. Ensure you communicate and apply these guidelines from time to time for compatibility across all touchpoints. With these best practices at hand, you are ready to create a strong brand for today’s busy marketplace. If you want to Boost your online presence by choosing the right brand guidelines. You can work with a specialist like FOR®’s Branding and Marketing Agency.
