Branding Guidelines–Why Do I Need Them?

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Once you’ve invested in branding development, without brand guidelines it is nearly impossible to keep this brand’s identity consistent across the industry.

 

When you think of how many places your brand will appear over its lifetime–your website, blog, social media, your identity package, your marketing materials, signage, print ads, logo-imprinted items and more, it's obvious that you would never wish to see the quality of your brand degrade over its lifetime. These guidelines help to ensure that everyone, both internally and externally, understands how to properly represent your brand.

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Along with consistency, brand guidelines add perceived value to your business. They demonstrate a high level of professionalism and commitment to maintaining the integrity of your brand.

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Besides having the guidelines demonstrate how the brand elements should be used, they should also provide visual rules as to how you do NOT want your logo displayed, ie disproportionately stretched or resized, incorrect colors or fonts, incorrect use of spacing around your logo, and more.

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Some key elements in your branding guidelines:
 

Logo Design­–typography, logo graphics, color palette (should include both CMYK & RGB values), arrangement of elements, tagline.

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Imagery–such as icons, style of photographs used in your marketing materials or web site.

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When developing your branding, consider including brand guidelines to your start-up package. Your designer can provide more information on this during the initial consultation.