Now you’ve got a great logo (that we designed for you). You need to understand how the visual identity is created so it can be rolled out effectively. The creation of brand guidelines is critical in helping others to maintain the visual identity and ensure subsequent materials are consistent.
Creating successful branded materials shouldn’t be difficult and this is where well written brand guidelines come in. There should be no need to get things wrong. A set of guidelines clearly set out how branded materials are created. The position of the logo, the minimum size. When and where to use a secondary version of the logo, Colours and typography should also be provided.
Brand guidelines are a source of practical information such as fonts, typography colours and the treatment of the logo. However, they can go further and set out the ‘tone of voice’ brand values, use of imagery and even show how the style can be developed to create new documents.
We think it is important to think of these documents as ‘guidelines’ rather than hard and fast rules. The objective should be of maintaining a style and allowing it to develop. If the guidelines are ignored materials could end up lacking the visual identity that we’ve spent so much effort creating. If there isn’t enough flexibility in the guidelines materials can start to look stale. Generally speaking it makes sense to focus on establishing a consistent visual identity before experimenting.
There is no need for brand guidelines to be hard copies these days and can be electronic or saved as PDF documents.
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