How to Write Brand Guidelines
If you’ve been in business for any length of time, you’ll know how important your brand is. Most large companies have a strict set of guidelines for external organisations that are authorised to use their branding. Without brand guidelines, there’s a risk of misrepresentation—such as logos being incorrectly placed, stretched or cropped on someone else’s webpage—which can harm the way customers perceive your business.
Comprehensive brand guidelines are essential to protect your brand’s integrity, particularly in today’s digital age, where logos and branding assets can easily be copied and distorted. It’s not just about protecting your brand from external misuse; it’s also vital for internal teams. For example, if you have a marketing department or like us at The Last Hurdle, operate on a franchise model, ensuring everyone knows how to use your logo correctly is crucial. This includes knowing how much space to leave around it, which fonts and colours to use in marketing literature, and even the tone of language that aligns with your brand.
How to Write Brand Guidelines
Here’s our simple guide to creating brand guidelines that are clear and effective:
Decide Who the Guidelines Are For
Consider your audience when drafting the guidelines. Avoid overly technical jargon and aim to keep the language as straightforward as possible. You may even want to create different versions of the guidelines, such as a one-page summary for staff or organisations that only have limited interactions with your brand. More detailed documents can be created for designers, partners or marketing agencies.
Identify What’s Important
Most established brands have strict rules regarding logo placement, size and acceptable use. Start by compiling a list of essential brand elements, such as how your logo should look on different platforms, how much clear space should surround it and what colours, fonts and tone of voice should be used in all communications. It’s also crucial to outline where your brand should not appear and what it shouldn’t be associated with.
Determine What to Include
Branding guidelines can encompass a wide range of elements:
- Logo usage: How the logo should be displayed, both digitally and in print.
- Typography: Specify the fonts and styles that should be used.
- Colour palette: Define the primary and secondary colours, including RGB and HEX codes for digital use and CMYK for print.
- Imagery: The types of images that reflect your brand identity, including style, tone and quality.
- Tone of voice: Guidelines for how your brand speaks to customers—whether it’s formal, conversational or something in between.
Provide Examples
Visuals are incredibly helpful in making your guidelines easy to understand. Include examples of correct and incorrect logo usage, proper font pairing and the appropriate application of colours. Showing what not to do is just as important as showing what to do. Use real-life examples where possible, such as images from campaigns that successfully followed the guidelines.
Keep It Simple and Consistent
While your brand guidelines should be comprehensive, they should also be easy to follow. Overly complicated rules can lead to confusion and errors. Make sure your instructions on positioning, sizing and colour usage are consistent throughout the document. Simplicity will help ensure that everyone—from internal staff to external partners—understands and adheres to your branding rules.
Why Are Brand Guidelines Important?
With the vast array of digital platforms available and the ease with which content can be copied and modified, it’s not always possible to fully protect your brand from misuse. However, clear and well-documented brand guidelines ensure that authorised users represent your brand correctly, maintaining its integrity and consistency across all platforms.
Appoint a Brand Guardian
Even with the best guidelines in place, it’s easy for businesses to unintentionally stray from them over time. To prevent this, consider appointing a “brand guardian”—someone responsible for ensuring that both in-house teams and external partners adhere to your brand guidelines consistently. This will help protect your brand’s identity and maintain a cohesive image across all communications.
By following these steps, you can create brand guidelines that will help your business present a professional and unified image, whether on digital platforms or in print. If you need assistance in developing or fine-tuning your brand guidelines, don’t hesitate to get in touch with The Last Hurdle. We’re here to help you protect and enhance your brand’s identity!
