By Black Bear Design on 08/30/2018
Brand guidelines offer clear-cut rules for how your logo, its colors, and messaging are represented to your audience. But they do so much more: they create consistency for your company’s public persona. They serve as a reference point as your marketing agency designs your website, collaterals, and social media presence. They tell the world what to expect from your branding. Let’s look at the value of brand guidelines and why you need to create yours.
A great place to begin clarifying your company’s personality is with your mission statement, differentiators, and core values. Each will help establish what your company stands for and will create a context for the visual elements in your brand guidelines. As they evolve over time (and they will), you’ll be able to update your brand manual quite simply to fall in line.
Next, think about your target customer and how you speak to them. Who purchases your product or service? Why do they choose your company over others? Are you a respected authority for them, or do you speak as a trusted friend? Is your tone of voice professional and traditional or playful and unconventional? With these in mind, consider your brand promise, attributes, and vision statement. How can you underscore each of these with how you’ll be represented to your audience?
First and foremost, brand guidelines (or style book, brand manual, or brand book) are the standards required to represent your branding correctly. Typically, they are laid out in a document that outlines the details of each of the following:
Because everyone needs them. Skip the time you’d waste making these decisions as they come up one by one by simply determining the rules for your brand from the get-go. If you’ve ever had to figure out of your name should appear in black and red or just black or part red throughout your website, or fix all the instances where it doesn’t have a registered trademark symbol in your collaterals, you’ll thank us.
If you have a large sales staff, team of realtors, or group of loan officers who often have to create their own personalized collateral pieces, brand guidelines will be a lifesaver. Does FDIC always have to follow your name? Your brand manual will make that plain. Cut down on the calls to Compliance today! If you often sponsor events and require that your logo looks a certain way on the fundraiser’s promotions, brand guidelines will help the charity get it right every time.
Now you know what they are and why you need them, so how do you present your brand manual? Should they live as PDFs that can easily be distributed and updated? Do you need something more formal that can be sent out to franchisees to share with their teams? Take some time to figure out what makes the most sense for your business. Don’t be afraid to flaunt your style and design aesthetic as part of your brand book with your colors and tone throughout. Not only does is lay out your guidelines clearly, but it also reinforces your brand every step of the way.
Here are a few brand guidelines for inspiration:
Creative Tech: Mozilla
Elaborate Tech: Google
Stripped-down Tech: Slack
Elaborate Restaurant: Macaroni Grill
As a digital marketing agency, we can assure you that brand guidelines are going to get used often. Probably by more people than you‘re expecting. Here are just a few ways to use brand guidelines:
Still feeling stuck when it comes to how to communicate your brand and all of the elements that go with it? Black Bear Design is here to help you design your logo, clarify your branding, and create the guidelines you’ll need. Please contact us today to see how we can help.