brand identity guidelines: why they’re so important and how to do it yourself

A brand’s identity is how it shows up in the world: how it looks/feels/sounds, what it says, what it stands for, and how it interacts with others. If you were to hire a graphic design professional or work with an agency to do your branding, one of the final deliverables that you’d walk away with would be a pdf called the “brand identity guidelines.” Those guidelines would act like the recipe for your brand, complete with all the ingredients and instructions you’d need to put the new brand identity to use.?

The bigger the brand, the more important it is to have guidelines like this to pass around to new employees or contractors so that they can quickly get up to speed and create branded materials. But small brands benefit from guideline writing too, albeit a little less intensely. A simple set of guidelines is all that’s required to create a sense of consistency for your brand — and consistency is the #1 goal. The more visually, verbally, and palpably consistent your brand is, the stronger the brand becomes in the minds of the people who encounter it.?

But being consistent is complicated. There are certain elements of a brand that require an almost mathematically-consistent approach, like how a logo should be used or what exact shade of black it should be (and those sorts of details should be very clearly defined with specific instructions to make exact replication possible), but other things, like how the brand speaks or what type of language it uses or how it expresses itself through imagery, require a more loosey-goosey level of instruction. It’s why brand guidelines are guidelines, not commandments. They need to be specific enough to get everyone on the same page but general enough to be applied to many different modes of communication.

When a brand really nails it, you’ll immediately start to notice the cohesion. Maybe you’ll see an item out in the world and it will remind you of the brand because it ~looks like them~. Or you’ll also start to feel like you really “get” the brand. You might laugh at their jokes or feel a stronger sense of connection. Brands who are really well-defined are more likely to be deeply loved by their audiences.

write your own guidelines

You’ll need to look through a real brand identity guidebook to fully understand what goes into one, but it can be hard to find them online because brands usually keep them for internal use only. That shouldn’t deter you from asking around for people to share them privately with you though.

Here’s one that’s publicly accessible: RISD’s brand identity guidelines. ?

If you’re writing your own brand guidelines for the first time, you don’t need to walk away with a slick pdf version of a brand guidebook (or if you’re like RISD: an entire website). You also certainly don’t need to write with the same level of detail that they do. It’s the act of writing out your brand guidelines (even if they’re just a few bullet points in a Google Doc) that’s important. By giving yourself a few parameters for what your brand should look like, feel like, and sound like, it becomes much easier to then move the brand forward in a distinct and consistent way.?

If you’re writing your own brand guidelines for the first time, here’s what to include:

logo usage

This part's straightforward: you’ll want to prep your logo files and save them in a designated place so that you always use the exact same logo every time you need it.

Keep in mind that you might want to have multiple versions of your logo (different colors or levels of detail), so be sure to think about the various ways that you’ll need to use your logo so that you can then create files that will actually be useful.

There are also going to be moments when you’ll need a very small version of your logo, like social media profile pictures or email avatars, so you’ll probably need to adapt your logo to work for the smaller space. Make a note of how you’d like to refer to your brand in writing. Are abbreviations allowed? Is there a “the” in the name? Is it capitalized?

Bok (pictured above) has a simple logo and they use it well, but over time they’ve also allowed it to morph and grow in delightful and creative directions. It still feels true to the brand though.

font and color usage

Like logos, this section should be straightforward and prescriptive.

For fonts: write down all of the fonts and weights (light, regular, bold, etc) that should be used for headings, subheadings, and paragraph text.

For colors: give each of your brand colors a name so that they’re easy to refer to in conversation. Write down their Hex numbers so that you can come back and copy/paste it when you need it.

Downtime bakery ’s visual identity is super succinct and consistent. Identities don’t have to be complicated and have tons of rules to be effective.

tone

Maybe the hardest part. I really love how RISD breaks it down in their “how we sound” section. They’ve defined their tone in just three words — curious, empowering, proactive — and it all stems from their core messaging: RISD “questions to create and creates to question.” So when you’re settling on your brand’s tone, the best place to start is with your core messaging (here's how to nail your messaging ). Revisit it and write down some keywords and then use those words to inform the guidelines for your tone.

Additional considerations

• What’s your brand’s personality?? Is it inspiring, confrontational, aspirational, assertive, spunky, intelligent, curious, supportive, high-brow, down-to-earth??
• What feelings does your brand evoke?
• What is it committed to??
• How is all of this reflected in the language that it uses? What are its mannerisms, attitude, or way of speaking?

Take a look through the National Park Service’s Instagram captions for inspiration — the language that they use is unflappably happy, funny, informative, thought-provoking, and awe-inspiring — which are all descriptors that fall right in line with the three big keywords from their mission statement: enjoyment, education, and inspiration.

visuals

This is a loose category that contains a wide range of media: photos, illustrations, video, iconography/symbols, social media posts and clips, graphics, etc — it’s anything that you use to express your brand visually. You’ll want to have your brand’s tone fully defined before you start on this one because the visuals will go hand in hand with it. Is your brand’s tone inspirational? Then maybe you’ll want to use a photojournalistic approach. Authentic? Phone-captured images and video will do. If it’s got a silly side then maybe you can throw in a meme or two.?

Look at the Imagery section on RISD’s How We Look page for an example of how to set some parameters for yourself.

Additional considerations

• What do the visuals need to do for your brand? Showcase your space or your product? Humanize your brand? Explain things in a visual way?
• What energy should the imagery have? How does the imagery build upon your brand’s core message and tone??
• What’s the style? Is it photojournalistic? Authentic? Nostalgic? Polished? Still-life? Action? Meme-y? Manipulated? Retro? Handmade?
• What’s the subject matter of the visuals? Should it only ever show people in action? Does it only ever show your product??

Loco pez ’s use of imagery on Instagram sparks conversation and makes you laugh. They also use multiple styles, a mix of their own photography and internet memes, which keeps things feeling variable and interesting.

Layouts

And finally, another element that should be addressed in the brand identity guidelines is how all of these elements should come together in a piece of content. We’ll call that “layouts” and we’ll get into that in a future issue.

Follow along at tincancooperative.com .

Other bits and pieces

• For an example of the brand-building process: Smith & Diction is a Philly design agency who wrote a Medium post about how they go about designing a new brand identity. It’s super helpful to see how the pros tackle it.
• …But if you’re a diy-er: you can get your brand up and running with just a font, color, and logo.?
• The Subtext is the destination for brand writing. Really helpful to see how professional copywriters and content strategists operate.
• At Blush.design you can pick illustrations and even modify them to work for your brand. Blush will never be as good as working with an actual illustrator, but it can help bring your brand to life until you’re able to team up with someone.?
• Shop around for photos and icons at The Noun Project.?