Why We’re Moving From Static Guidelines to Dynamic Brand Tools

Brand guidelines have long been the holy grail of brand identity deliverables.

But do they work?

Can designers truly wrap up all their work into a rigid set of rules? And, more importantly, can clients take that set of rules and bring their new brand to life?

We’re willing to put our neck on the line here and say the answer to all of the above is simple: no, they can’t.

At Lazy Sundays, guidelines are just a starting point, a tool in the larger process of brand building. They can't replace the value of collaboration, talent, and hands-on experience in interpreting and evolving a brand.

That's why we are actively transitioning from delivering static guidelines to dynamic brand tools.

Here's how.

We Create, Then We Upskill

The agency-client model is changing. Ultimately, businesses want to own skills and expertise in-house, and rightly so.

We want to support this shift, by helping our clients to truly insource the skills needed to turn their brand into a tool for growth.

This means we work closely with your internal teams, providing the support and tools they need to manage and evolve the brand from within. We want to build capability, not dependency, fostering a sense of ownership among your team members. Your brand, your baby. Not ours.

That's why at Lazy Sundays, we believe that the true power of a brand lies not in a set of static guidelines but in the hands of those who live and breathe it every day. Our goal is to help anyone who works with a brand implement that strategy across the business: be that through product, marketing or sales.

To achieve this, our collaboration with clients doesn’t end with a guideline handover, but by creating custom tools that are designed for daily use.

Our Approach to Upskilling Teams

The kinds of tools we might develop vary from client to client, but here are some of the things we offer:

1. Plug and Play GPTs: Imagine a GPT fine-tuned with your brand's strategy, voice, and style, ready to assist in your day-to-day communications. We make this a reality. We train your own GPT with your brand strategy, voice, and style. This acts as your everyday writing assistant, ensuring consistency and creativity in your communications.
2. Practical Digital Marketing Toolkits: Customized tools and templates for social media, email marketing, and online advertising that dovetail perfectly with your brand identity, enabling efficient and consistent content creation.
3. Defining Production Guidelines: Our support extends to video and multimedia content creation, including guidance for storyboarding, scripting, and editing that align with your brand core narrative.
4. Internal Culture Workshops: Through carefully crafted experiences like workshops and coaching sessions, we’ll align your employees with your new brand strategy, ensuring everyone is aligned with your brand vision.
5. Brand Advocacy Frameworks: Where it makes sense, we also develop strategies and tools to transform your employees into brand ambassadors, providing guidelines and content ideas for effective social media engagement.

Transforming Brand Guidelines Into Tools for Growth

Let’s be real, though. Brand guidelines do have an important function and aren’t about to disappear. They provide a foundational understanding of a brand's visual and communication style, ensuring initial consistency.

But for a brand to truly grow and stay relevant, it needs to evolve beyond these initial parameters.

In a world where brands are constantly competing for attention, those that ‘win’ are the ones that react to changing market and customer needs ahead of the curve. We want our clients to be among those ‘winners’ by giving them the skills to not only respond to market changes, but to anticipate and lead them while staying consistent with their overall brand strategy.

This can only happen if they have a toolkit, capability and confidence that extends beyond static guidelines.

So, is 2024 the year that we start to rethink the role of brand guidelines? We hope so, and we'll be leading front and centre.