Table of Contents
Purpose
Value
Every person must comprehend the significance of your company's brand, how to apply it, and how to adhere to its conventions. According to a 2005 study by Booz Allen Hamilton and Wolff Olins, brand-guided organisations outperform their rivals, resulting in superior target results.
Understanding
There are two reasons why brand guidelines are important. First, they help your employees, distributors, and marketing agencies understand why the brand should be used to achieve corporate objectives. Second, they provide specific instructions for using brand elements consistently.
Consistency
Brand guidelines are designed to guarantee that all parties employ the brand's visual elements in a consistent manner. Brand guidelines offer information and tools, and they establish standards for using brand names, logos, typefaces, text copy, and other visual elements in advertisements, brochures, newsletters, packaging, and online communications. Because guidelines enable us to manage the way other people use our brand, its visual appearance is always consistent.
Perception
Designing brand guidelines is significant for managing consumer perceptions. It's crucial to create and reinforce a consistent image of your brand each time you interact with customers, employees, volunteers, journalists, and local communities. Using brand guidelines, we can accomplish this goal.
These guidelines will help you develop a strong brand that delivers enduring value to customers, the market, and your company by using them appropriately. This guide will provide details on how to utilise visual identity and messaging, as well as a comprehensive manual for anyone using the brand and its elements in their job, including employees, volunteers, channel partners, event promoters, designers, and marketing organisations.
Anatomy of Brand Guidelines
Your brand guide may address the following components:
Brand Messaging
- Brand Core
- Brand personality, tone, and voice
- Brand value
- Target audience
Logo Usage
- Acceptable vs. unacceptable use
- Proportions, alignment, and clear space
- Secondary logos
- Sub-branding
Color Palette
- Defined colours for digital and print (Pantone, cmyk, rgb and hex values)
- Typography
- Font families
- Style and sizing for headings, sub-heads, body copy
Approved Imagery
- Photography style
- Iconography style
- Additional elements, shapes and textures
Marketing Templates
- Stationery
- Sell sheets, brochures, white papers, menus, products
- Social media
- Email templates and signatures
Building Trust
The Value of being consistent
It’s much simpler to build a strong identity when you have a set of standards to help you create an identical brand picture. By expressing who they are, what they stand for, and what they promise, you can express your purpose, personality, and message.
A company or stationery manufacturer that requires strict guidelines for voice tone, especially on social media, will probably have more stringent rules for tone of voice than a local restaurant or boutique. In this case, both target audiences will be more engaged with the tone that speaks to them, thus creating a sense of alignment and trust.
Established brand guidelines also ensure that new assets will work with your existing brand. Whether you’re introducing a new item, launching an event, or running a social media campaign, new themes and campaigns should utilise existing brand characteristics to support recognition and acceptance.
Looking the Part
Your company will be able to maintain an image of professionalism and expertise if you use a consistent tone of voice that is sincere, knowledgeable, and friendly. However, tone of voice is just one aspect, not the only one.
Using colour, typeface, pictures, and logos consistently across your print and digital marketing materials is crucial. Ensure that your message and visuals work together to strengthen your brand by taking the time to ensure that they do.
A business should establish brand guidelines to guarantee an impression of trust and competence.
Brand Recognition
Well-established marketing campaigns are executed by brands that are instantly recognisable across print, digital, and social media.
When you spot the golden arches in red and gold, you know you’re looking at the McDonald’s logo. The black and orange Harley-Davidson bar and shield logo is another example of how colour and symbol work together to immediately establish brand recognition.
Because the company fiercely protects all aspects of the brand (logo, colour, messaging), the marketplace can more easily identify the “authentic” brand from imitators and enhance overall brand recognition.
Everything Evolves
Although your brand message and visuals must remain consistent, they should not be static. As your company grows and changes with new technology, new products, and new audiences, it is crucial to keep your brand guide current and communicate the changes.
Embody your Brand
Branding is all about details, so everyone in your company should understand its importance and use it correctly.
The correct shade of blue, the right tagline, the right font, and the proper logo size, for example, are all critical. If you have a new intern or if your Marketing Manager is out of the office, you may maintain consistency by adhering to established guidelines.
Brand guides can help you avoid confusion and inconsistency and save time and money as a result.
The Value of being consistent
It’s much simpler to build a strong identity when you have a set of standards to help you create an identical brand picture. By expressing who they are, what they stand for, and what they promise, you can express your purpose, personality, and message.
A company or stationery manufacturer that requires strict guidelines for voice tone, especially on social media, will probably have more stringent rules for tone of voice than a local restaurant or boutique. In this case, both target audiences will be more engaged with the tone that speaks to them, thus creating a sense of alignment and trust.
Established brand guidelines also ensure that new assets will work with your existing brand. Whether you’re introducing a new item, launching an event, or running a social media campaign, new themes and campaigns should utilise existing brand characteristics to support recognition and acceptance.
Looking the Part
Your company will be able to maintain an image of professionalism and expertise if you use a consistent tone of voice that is sincere, knowledgeable, and friendly. However, tone of voice is just one aspect, not the only one.
Using colour, typeface, pictures, and logos consistently across your print and digital marketing materials is crucial. Ensure that your message and visuals work together to strengthen your brand by taking the time to ensure that they do.
A business should establish brand guidelines to guarantee an impression of trust and competence.
Brand Recognition
Well-established marketing campaigns are executed by brands that are instantly recognisable across print, digital, and social media.
When you spot the golden arches in red and gold, you know you’re looking at the McDonald’s logo. The black and orange Harley-Davidson bar and shield logo is another example of how colour and symbol work together to immediately establish brand recognition.
Because the company fiercely protects all aspects of the brand (logo, colour, messaging), the marketplace can more easily identify the “authentic” brand from imitators and enhance overall brand recognition.
Everything Evolves
Although your brand message and visuals must remain consistent, they should not be static. As your company grows and changes with new technology, new products, and new audiences, it is crucial to keep your brand guide current and communicate the changes.
Embody your Brand
Branding is all about details, so everyone in your company should understand its importance and use it correctly.
The correct shade of blue, the right tagline, the right font, and the proper logo size, for example, are all critical. If you have a new intern or if your Marketing Manager is out of the office, you may maintain consistency by adhering to established guidelines.
Brand guides can help you avoid confusion and inconsistency and save time and money as a result.
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