This content originally appeared on Envato Tuts+ Tutorials and was authored by Grace Fussell
Creating a brand is hard work. That's why you probably don't want to see your brand personality and identity diluted at every step! This is where brand guidelines come in. They set down the rules for using a business's ‘brand assets’ (logos, colors, and fonts) and inject life into your brand.
The good thing is, creating brand guidelines doesn't need to be complicated. Here, we'll tell you all the ins and outs of putting together the best brand guidelines around. We'll even give you some inspiring brand guidelines examples, from comprehensive style bibles to clear and concise guides.
Looking for adaptable InDesign presentation templates that you can turn into digital brand guidelines? Discover a wide selection of stylish InDesign templates from Envato.
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1. What are brand guidelines?
Freelance illustrators, photographers, and designers. Small businesses. Multinational corporations.
What do the above have in common? They would all benefit equally from having brand guidelines, also known as a style guide or brand manual. But what are brand guidelines? They're a document that sets down the rules for applying ‘brand assets’, which include useful brand building blocks such as logos, colors, and fonts.
The primary purpose of a brand guidelines document is to give guidance to others as to how they can use the company’s branding when they create anything new, such as business cards, advertising, websites, packaging, etc.
In short, they offer assistance when designing basically anything that visually represents the business in any way.
Even if your company has just one employee, a style guide will help you tie together all the different ways you present yourself visually, and help to create your ‘brand identity’ in the process.
Whatever the scale of the business, creating a style guide serves a practical purpose, and it's fun to do too!
2. Why do I need a brand manual?
Or, as that question should really be phrased:
"I like creating and designing things, it’s really fun! So why would I need a document that's going to put restraints on how creative I can be?"
Designers usually fall into two groups. The first group—freelancers or agency designers—often work across different brands, following various style guides but enjoying more creative freedom. Clients often hire them for a fresh take, which can mean looser brand restrictions.
The second group are in-house designers, focused on a single brand. While some might think this limits creativity, that’s not always true. A strong brand guide doesn't (or shouldn't) mean restriction.
Which leads us to this grand statement, and essential motto for any style guide creator:
"A style guide should do just that—guide, but never restrain, creativity"
Below are some brand guidelines examples which adhere faithfully to this motto and give some guidance on the essential building blocks of a successful style guide.
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3. The building blocks of a style guide
By now, you may be left wondering what to include in brand guidelines.
As the saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day. And brand guidelines are just the same. Every style guide takes a bit of work. The following will guide you through the essential elements of any good style guide, but it’s completely your choice if you want to expand the guide to NASA or British Rail proportions (see below).
Back to the basics of what to include in brand guidelines... every style guide worth its salt will have the following elements:
- A cover
- A contents page
- A brand ethos/motto (optional)
- A logo guide
- A color guide
- A typeface guide
- A guide to graphics and/or photography
- A guide to best practice, with helpful examples
- A note of thanks to everyone who has read the guidelines through to the end (they deserve it!)
Let’s take a look at some successful brand guidelines examples of these in action:
1. The cover
The Front Cover of a style guide is the first port of call for a reader. As a result, it's a great place to make a statement about your brand identity. On it, you can summarise the main elements of your brand (logo, colors and principal typefaces) and show off your branding style in a creative, attention-grabbing way.
In its digital brand guidelines, hip app company Foursquare combines the three main elements of its brand identity—logo, colors and typefaces—to create a simple yet striking cover design that has a vaguely hypnotic effect on the reader.
Just like the name states, easyGroup's brand manual cover is simple and minimalistic. No unnecessary fuss here. Still, it conveys the brand's style and identity with the color and font.
2. The contents page
Whether your document is a few pages or a few volumes, it’s always a good idea to include a Contents page as part of your style guide. This helps readers orientate themselves, and transforms the document into a brand manual that readers can actually use.
What makes a good contents page? Keep it simple, free of clutter, easy to read (no tiny font sizes here, please), and divide the contents list up into sections if it’s looking a little lengthy.
The telecommunications and electronics company Motorola presents its content pages in a neat way with brand colors and subtle background patterns. This provides certain appeal, without compromising on reading comprehension.
3. Your brand ethos
Most big companies these days love to include a brand ethos or motto at the beginning of their style guides.
If you’re a one-person freelancing business this may seem a bit much, but for bigger businesses this can be a nice way of letting your employees know how the company’s branding relates to the bigger picture, and how it will develop the company’s progress and success in the future.
Foursquare sets it out in simple terms (and large type).
easyGroup sets its ‘brand values’ in readable, brand-friendly orange frames.
4. The logo guide
Whether you’re the CEO of Apple or a freelancer in need of effective brand guidelines, your business’s visual identity will be rooted in its logo.
Designing a logo is a huge deal. Your logo is the most instantly recognisable component of your brand identity. It might be type-based (perhaps a signature or simple typeset design), symbolic (just a graphic) or a combination of the two. In any case, you’re definitely going to want to lay down the rules and brand guidelines for your design and how to use it.
Some things to consider and spell out about logo design in your digital brand guidelines:
- Do you have different versions of the logo for different uses (e.g. one version for letterheads, another for the website homepage)?
- Does the logo appear in one colorway, or several different colorways? Would you allow people to use a black-and-white version?
- Should the logo have size restrictions, i.e. should it never be placed at a size smaller or larger than x?
- Does the logo need adequate margins around its perimeter, to set it apart from other content?
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How should the logo not be used? Can you demonstrate some incorrect examples (see NASA's slightly over-the-top example below)?
The Olympics demonstrates the recommended minimum size of its iconic logo, and shares guidance for construction.
Don’t mess with the NASA branding team. They’ll be really angry if you apply the logo in one of the many incorrect ways demonstrated in their ‘identity system’.
5. The color guidance system
Unless your printer is out of toner, it seems very likely that you will be looking to use color on your branded materials. After all, the right logo color scheme can make your brand stand out.
Color can breathe life into a brand. It can make it exciting, approachable, luxurious, serious or light-hearted, amongst so many other emotive qualities that we associate with particular colors and color combinations.
Color can also be sadly and unjustifiably abused. To avoid anyone applying a neon ‘glow’ to your brand typeface or reworking your beloved logo in shades of pastel, devote a page of your style guide to the correct application of color.
Things to think about and include in the guide:
- Do you have a principal brand color(s) which should be used in the first instance? Do you have supporting brand colors that can be used on a website, advertising materials, etc.?
- Define the Pantone swatch of each brand color, and include CMYK, RGB and HEX code versions of each as well, so the color can be applied across print and online media.
easyGroup has one of the best brand guidelines examples to illustrate this. It gives readers the full range of options for applying its instantly recognisable brand orange.
Marin Transit, a public bus agency in California, provides its brand colors in CMYK and HEX code format. Perhaps not as traditional, but it makes for straightforward application of the brand colors online.
6. The typeface guide
Stop your colleague from defacing your business cards with a novelty font by laying down the law for how your brand typefaces should be used.
It’s important to define the fonts you’d like to use for branded materials, as well as define rules for how the fonts should be used. Consider including guidance on:
- The typefaces and weights of each (e.g. Regular, Bold, Light) that make up your typeface portfolio.
- Do you have one font for headings, and another for body text? If so, make it clear!
- Do you have size specs for your text, i.e. this font should never be larger or smaller than x.
- Do you have preferences for typography (e.g. drop caps, paragraph alignment, tracking, etc.)? Remember, if you don’t say it, no one will know what your ideal brand typography should look like.
- You might have a typeface that you use exclusively on your logo. Spell it out if you don’t want it to be used anywhere else.
You can find some great examples of fonts designed for use in logos here:
The Barbican Theatre’s brand guidelines are a highly effective example of how to present information about typefaces in a design-forward way. Blowing up ‘Futura’ and setting it in a contrasting color gives the font more significance and memorability.
Guidance on type sizing and alignment is presented in a playful, colorful style that makes the rules seem inspiring, not irritating.
7. The guide to graphics and photography
No brand exists in a bubble. Successful brand design responds flexibly—most good logos will be just as effective teamed with graphics and/or photography as they would be on their own.
But (you guessed it) you do need to specify in your style guide how images should be used alongside other elements of your branding.
Be sure to think about the following, and provide some images to demonstrate good (and bad) examples:
- Can your logo and/or brand type be set over the top of graphics or photography? Advising others to avoid setting your logo over busy backgrounds is usually a good standard tip that will apply to any brand design.
- Do you have graphic elements that can be lifted from your logo design, and can be used in a flexible way across materials?
- Should the photos and graphics that are chosen to run alongside the logo have particular subjects or emotive qualities?
- Are there photos and graphics that should be avoided?
The clear, concise style guide used by National Geographic features easy-to-understand examples of the selection of images.
8. Best practice guidance
You may have included a couple of examples of your brand in action here and there, but it’s also a great idea to devote a page or two of your style guide to showcasing examples of best practice.
These can be real-life examples of posters, exhibition materials, flyers etc. Or you could include some simple mock-ups of business cards and other items, showing how your brand assets (logos, type, color, etc.) should be positioned and printed.
The London Underground Signs guide shows this world-renowned brand in action, pulling together examples from a myriad different situations to depict how to communicate the brand effectively.
Why not show off the flexibility and creative potential of the branding by featuring examples of branded packaging? Here, the digital brand guidelines for Villandry Café, expand to stylish carrier bags.
9. Say thanks!
While it is certainly not an essential component of a style guide, it’s a nice touch to give a brief note of thanks at the end of your guide. If the reader made it through to the end of your document, this means they’re much more likely to care about the brand and how it is presented.
Don’t assume everyone else at your studio/business/company is going to care as much as you do about your brand. Most will receive a hefty PDF in their inbox or in-tray and promptly forget about it. This is why so many companies now provide an online brand ‘portal’ for their employees, which is a more concise version of a style guide that exists solely online. And it’s instantly more accessible and useful, providing instantly downloadable logos, fonts and graphics for employees to use.
If you’re sharing brand assets with a number of other people, consider hosting your brand online.
The Swarm brand (owned by Foursquare) provides a range of logos and icons on its website for users to download with no hassle.
Create brand guidelines for your design and identity!
A well-designed brand manual should help you or your employees feel confident when creating branded materials. It should help them stick to your brand rules, but also give them the guidance and freedom to be creative with the brand. After all, designing, even within the constraints of a brand ‘look’, should be fun!
Take inspiration from the best brand guidelines examples above. Then, try creating your own style guide using an InDesign template and by following this simple structure in your document:
- A cover
- A contents page
- A brand ethos/motto (optional)
- A logo guide
- A color guide
- A typeface guide
- A guide to graphics and/or photography
- A guide to best practice, with helpful examples
- A note of thanks
Where to find InDesign brand guidelines templates
Take your brand to the next level with an adaptable InDesign brand guidelines template. You can find a wide range of InDesign templates on Envato. Subscribe for a low monthly fee and get access to a bunch of top-tier digital assets, including the best brand guidelines templates!
Here are some of the most awesome InDesign brand guidelines examples:
Black Brand Guidelines InDesign Template
Lay out the important details of your brand in style. This awesome sample brand guidelines InDesign template features a sleek and sophisticated design inspired by trendy low-poly forms. Get access to two convenient sizes with parent pages, editable text, and so much more!
Brand Guidelines Template for InDesign
This simple and stylish InDesign brochure template features a simple pop of color throughout—simply swap in your own brand color and you're good to go! It's a fun and effective way to set brand guidelines for your designs.
Berry InDesign Sample Brand Guidelines
This InDesign sample brand guidelines template has a minimalist, on-trend style. It provides you with a fantastic blank canvas for creating an amazing style guide.
Want more? We have more!
Continue learning with more InDesign tips and brand design tutorials:
This content originally appeared on Envato Tuts+ Tutorials and was authored by Grace Fussell
Grace Fussell | Sciencx (2015-09-22T10:08:30+00:00) How to create your own brand guidelines. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2015/09/22/how-to-create-your-own-brand-guidelines/
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