Here's how you can adapt brand guidelines for remote work.

Beyond “access” to the guidelines themselves, it’s important that brands use digital accessibility standards to ensure their brand guidelines are able to be used with AT (assistive technology) like screen readers. All images should be properly alt-tagged and color contrast should be checked using WACG 2.0 standards. Fonts that are used for design elements should not be used for body copy and legibility is extremely important. Finally, branding for remote teams isn’t just about access with tech or access to the information but about ensuring they’re flexible and easy to updates based on new terminology or best practices. Inclusive brand language is essential and should be clear, explicit, and consistent. Linking to a glossary is a big bonus.

When brand guidelines are distributed as PDFs, they can become outdated in no time. This is a big headache for larger organisations, where remote workers and employees might stick with old versions of the visual identity, leading to a mishmash of branding. Enter cloud-based platforms like Bravemark and Corebook – your ultimate source of truth. These tools ensure that in-house teams, agencies, and freelancers are always on the same page with the most current brand guidelines. It's brand cohesion, sorted! Want other smart ways to keep everyone in the loop? Try apps like Figma or set up a custom repository. This way, guidelines and assets are always up-to-date and ready to download. Keep it fresh, keep it consistent!

There's 3 recommendations that the modern marketer needs for brand guidelines to be accessible. (1) Innovations... interactive style guides: tools that allow remote teams to visualize brand elements in real-time; or, AI-powered brand assistants: chatbots that can answer brand-related questions instantly, 24/7 support. and (2) Inclusivity...ie, inclusive design features: accessibility options like text-to-speech, high contrast modes, and scalable fonts to accommodate diverse needs; and collaborative annotation: remote teams can add notes directly to the guidelines, fostering a culture of continuous improvement. (3) Mobile-first approach: Optimize your guidelines for mobile devices, allowing team members to access brand information on-the-go.

Visuals: Clear logo, font, and color use across digital comms (templates & asset libraries help). Communication: Keep it clear, concise, and professional in writing and video calls. Messaging: Consistent brand voice in presentations, proposals, and marketing materials (training might be needed). Storytelling: Explore virtual tools like video testimonials to connect with audiences. Brand Advocacy: Empower remote employees to be brand ambassadors with clear social media guidelines. This keeps your brand strong and consistent, even with a remote workforce.

Most brand guidelines are not well written enough to be memorable. This means that, whilst you can ask your team to create content as if Nike/ Disney/ IBM/ Games Workshop did it and they do a good job, if you ask them to create content as your own brand they fail to do it consistently. One answer to this challenge is to obsess over documenting the rules of the brand like some ancient scroll dredged up from the dead sea. You can make these scrolls very accessible online now. Doing so will make the brand managers feel that they have done their job. This will not solve a problem, but will be less work in the short-term.

In today’s remote-first world, where most interactions with your brand occur online, visual consistency is essential. It’s more than just having a recognizable logo or a cohesive color palette. It means ensuring every element, from your website to social media, looks sharp and consistent across all digital touchpoints. Create digital-friendly logo variants, optimize image formats, and maintain quality across devices. Use web-safe fonts and uniform text styles for clarity. Check your color palette for accessibility and develop branded templates for virtual meetings. Regularly review your digital assets and provide clear guidelines to keep your brand identity strong and cohesive online.

Brand Guidelines include a host of usage guidelines in order to improve brand's visual consistency across platforms and collateral types. A Brand guideline will show how to space the logo graphic from text content (if any), will show the length and breadth of the logo, the primary and secondary colors through which the brand can be represented etc. Of late, brands have forayed into Omni-channel presence and marketing and in order for a Gen Z who is active on Tiktok and Gen Y who is active on LinkedIn should have a consistent view of the brand. Thus, visual consistency is of importance in today's world!

Visuals Evolution: A flow basis Consistency and Scale including clear prescription on what visuals are core, complementing and what should or better be avoided Color Codes with a pinch of salt on what are core preferences within our Communication Communication Tone of Voice: Clear Examples Library including Tips on how we can keep our communication steady while appealing Storytelling Roundabouts: Showcasing a crystal clear palette with clear example on how our story telling shall rotate depending to the platform in use matching the TA the most Trouble shooting and Guidance Accessibility is a must for our workforce at any point of time.

In a remote setting, maintaining visual consistency is crucial as your brand is primarily encountered online. As a Global CMO, it's vital to provide detailed instructions on logo usage, color palettes, typography, and other visual elements that define your brand identity. Expand your guidelines to include digital-friendly formats and resolutions, ensuring your visual assets look sharp on all screens and in various digital contexts, from social media to virtual presentations. Additionally, maintain a consistent brand voice across all communications to reinforce your brand's message and identity. This approach ensures that your brand remains cohesive and recognizable in the digital landscape.

Adapting brand guidelines for remote work is all about maintaining visual consistency to ensure that your brand's identity remains cohesive across all digital platforms. This can be achieved by using a consistent color palette, fonts, and imagery that align with your brand's core values and messaging. It's also important to adapt your messaging to suit different platforms while keeping the brand's tone intact. By doing so, you create a seamless brand experience that is recognizable and trustworthy, no matter where your audience encounters it.

Remote work often implies colleagues of multiple nationalities and languages. So keep things visual. And do not explain - showing real examples that inspire people is way more effective than typing up rules somebody would have to study!

Communication is an important key for effective remote collaboration. Widely spoken and understood languages to be given top priority. Short texts is more appealing with simple choice of words thereby creating maximum reach and spreading across all touchpoints. Builds the trust and confidence for the brand.

One aspect far too many businesses get wrong is their brand voice. Businesses spend time getting the visual aspect of a brand right but then have no direction on how to communicate effectively across all channels, be it in person or online. Setting out a clear brand voice will make sure your communications are cohesive and keeps them on brand. I would urge any business to conduct an internal survey asking key questions about the business. Ask how they feel about the business and what they feel the business stands for. You will probably fine a lot of differing thoughts and if that is the case, your brand voice is not cohesive for your team, so will not be for your customers.

As a Branding student and an eternal learner, I have realised that every brand no matter which sector they are in, has a voice of it's own! While working for an adhesive brand, our brand voice was decided upon as a cheerful and friendly legacy brand that cheers people up and believes in binding people together for a bigger cause! The emails, social media posts, letters, etc had a witty tinge to it bringing a smile on the faces of the reader. It worked wonders for the brand in elevating their status as a legacy adhesive brand!

Trust is everything. And clear and unmistakable communication will get you there. Your tone and voice will lead the way in showing up as expected, and mixed with the occasional unexpected, you’ll add the necessary pizzazz to not only stand out, but be seen, heard and valued for your inspiring, educational or entertaining messages.

I use VA’s and they actually taught me how to use Trello to track, review and approve projects. We also have a weekly zoom meeting to go over KPI. Remote working works!

There are many available tools to assist with brand development for remote work, look at tools such as Digital Asset Management (DAM) platforms that provide a single source of truth for storing and sharing photos; videos; marketing material and templates. A number of these offer great features including AI tagging and version control. Other tools like Canva and Adobe for teams provide feedback/commentary options so your team can contribute and discuss projects within the platform.

So many businesses still run using email. Staff work remotely and everyone is clearly disconnected. They is an array of tools available to turbo charge collaboration and productivity including Basecamp, Miro, slack just to name a few. By piloting or trialling these and other platforms in your business you promote efficiency, enablement, good collaboration and a sense of control and well being.

Foster Collaboration and Feedback: Encourage open communication and collaboration among remote team members to maintain brand alignment. Use collaboration tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Asana to facilitate discussions and feedback on brand-related projects. Create channels or forums dedicated to brand guidelines where team members can ask questions, share insights, and provide feedback. By fostering a collaborative environment, you can ensure that everyone is on the same page and adheres to the brand standards, even when working remotely.

Building your team as a community helps bridge the gap created by physical distance. A community is bound by shared interests. While company success is an obvious common goal, secondary non-economic objectives can serve as the glue that strengthens the team's bonds. The key question for any manager is: What can unite them beyond work? Identifying and fostering these shared passions or values will transform individuals into a cohesive, supportive community. Start by understanding your team's interests and passions through surveys or informal online discussions. Use this information to design programs that resonate with them.

my greatest lesson and advice to inspiring, motivating, supporting and embracing people and talent is to be human. Be human in all you do. Empathy, Kindness, and a humane attitude to all you interract with, will give you results in performance comittment and trust You cannot achieve this by following a hymn sheet or 100 point check list. Ive applied this mindset around the world in all kinds of cultures and countries. Being human is a must.

**Training and Support:** Offer regular virtual training sessions to ensure remote team members understand and implement brand guidelines correctly. Provide access to detailed resources such as video tutorials, FAQs, and step-by-step guides. Establish a dedicated support channel for addressing any questions or issues related to brand compliance, ensuring consistent adherence to brand standards across the team.

There is only one answer to why employee #278394 in your factory offshore does exactly what you want them to do while you ae in your office in NY... CULTURE. You need to instill Culture early and reinforce it often.

When one wishes to set a process and creates a template for ease of usage, Trainings play a vital role. In a similar manner, in order to implement Brand Guidelines, it is important to give Trainings via Q&A sessions to senior level professionals, while those in the entry stage might require a mix of tutorials and webinars followed by Q&A sessions.

Consistency in branding is essential and when one is working remotely it's best to take advantage of pre recorded trainings and refer to any brand guidelines available online. Most importantly, when connecting with colleagues, ask questions and learn from them to cement your understanding of how you can use your creativity.

While you learn the importance of adapting your brand guidelines for remote collaboration, a pivotal aspect will be establishing robust feedback mechanisms. Please set up regular virtual meetings and surveys, alongside a dedicated communication channel for brand discussions, enabling your team to voice their experiences and suggest improvements actively. This ongoing feedback loop will be essential in refining your guidelines, ensuring they stay relevant and practical for your remote workforce. You need to keep these feedback channels open and responsive. Actively engaging with your team’s input helps maintain the efficacy of your brand guidelines and fosters a culture of continuous improvement and team cohesion in a remote setting.

Feedbacks can happen on the go, while quarterly ones can bring rhythm and consistency in gauging and clear spans for evaluation. I would suggest if possible ensure majority of those sessions takes place in person rather than virtual while at the end of each a clear document sharing that captures all points discussed. Make the discussions clear, straight, safe and less political with ambiguity delaying what you have to deliver to the next time, at the each round. This strategy which is commonly used is against transparency and would never help the organization and the individual.

Establish structured and inclusive feedback mechanisms tailored to remote working environments by adapting your brand guidelines. To ensure consistency, encourage regular, scheduled feedback sessions using standardised templates. Foster a culture of openness through the inclusion of clear guidelines on the provision of constructive feedback and active listening. Gather input from all team members using digital tools such as anonymous surveys and feedback platforms. This approach ensures that feedback is systematic, comprehensive and actionable, fostering continuous improvement and engagement in a remote working environment.

Listen to your team. Set up easy ways for them to give feedback. Then, actually listen and do something about it. Simple as that.

En un entorno remoto, la consistencia visual se vuelve aún más crítica, ya que su marca a menudo se encontrará en línea. Es importante proporcionar instrucciones detalladas sobre el uso del logotipo, las paletas de colores, la tipografía y cualquier otro elemento visual que conforme la identidad de su marca. Es posible que deba ampliar sus pautas para incluir formatos y resoluciones compatibles con lo digital, asegurándose de que sus activos visuales se vean nítidos en cualquier pantalla y en diversos contextos digitales, desde las redes sociales hasta las presentaciones virtuales.

Make sure that brand standards actually exist. There are quite a few companies that don't actually have their brand standards formalized into a document that can be shared. The brand standards document should include the typography, color palette and approved displays of any brand and word marks. As a best practice, consider creating a media room where your approved logos can be found easily. In addition to creating the brand standards, also create a process by which final collateral assets are approved before they are disseminated. This goes for all assets. If you are an organization that uses Canva, consider also creating approved templates and allow only those to be used by team members.

Recognize and incorporate cultural nuances in global teams. Adjust guidelines to respect cultural differences and ensure they are inclusive and globally applicable. Develop tailored guidelines for different regions if necessary, to better align with local markets and cultures.

Es imposible no considerar en el desarrollo de una marca lo que corresponde a la experiencia del cliente en sí, deben estar correctamente alineados. Ya sea un producto o un bien, podemos tener un excelente logo, toda la comunicación digital alineada a la marca, etc. pero si no logramos cumplir con la expectativa que nosotros mismos generamos al cliente, será una gestión incompleta.

Shadowing the remote workforce is a of a great importance until a certain point of time when all is bullet proof and matches with expectations and KPIs. Try initiating physical contacts occasionally when burning points can be opened and discussed in person including the fact that feedback sharing can stream. This without a doubt can trigger rapport, confidence and ongoing improvement. This better not to be missed at any circumstances.

Son 3 las principales consideraciones a tener en cuenta. 1 documentación detallada y de fácil acceso. 2 herramientas de gestión de marca. 3 revisión y auditorias periódicas.