M U LT IM E D IA E L E M E N T S

ATING A BRAND GUIDE

CRE
WHAT IS A BRAND GUIDE?

It is a document that explains how to implement the brand’s communications

architecture and how to use the brand elements in various media and artwork.
The content in this document includes guidelines for all artwork, colours employed,
typographic usage, the editorial approach and style and even sample applications.
WHY CREATE A BRAND GUIDE?
You’ll have an easy guide to refer to when handing over the project. It adds
professionalism to you as a designer as well as the final product. The client will know
that there was a reason for every decision.
As the designer, you maintain control of the design long after you’ve finished the
project. When someone breaks the rules, you can refer them to the document.
You avoid cheapening the message, branding and the design. This guideline, forces
you to define and hone your style, making for more effective design.
BRANDING GUIDELINES: WHAT TO INCLUDE?

Strategic brand overview

This should be short and sweet. In as few words as possible, make clear the vision for
this design and any keywords people should keep in mind while designing.
Most people will probably flip straight to the picture pages, but this description is key
to establishing the main reasons for creating the rules in the first place.
BRANDING GUIDELINES: WHAT TO INCLUDE?
• Kew uses strong photography in its ‘brand essence’
message, with a few paragraphs that both inspire and
define the brand.
• Even if you read only the first sentence, you get a
sense of what it’s trying to do.
• While kew has quite a few of these message pages,
they are intertwined with beautiful photography that
themselves define the photographic style and primary
message.
BRANDING GUIDELINES: WHAT TO INCLUDE?

Logos
For print and web, most brands revolve
around the logo. Make sure you
provide logo variations and clarify
minimum sizes.
BRANDING GUIDELINES:
WHAT TO INCLUDE?

Cunard provides many variations on its minimum

sizes.
Because its crest can be displayed either on its
own, with the name or with the tagline, specifying
minimum sizes is important for legibility (for
example, if the logo with the tagline is too small, it
will be illegible).
BRANDING GUIDELINES: WHAT TO INCLUDE?
Show correct usage of the logo. Provide logos with
different colors, and specify which colors are allowed.
Think brick gives designers a lot of options with its design.
The point is to allow flexibility while maintaining
consistency.
BRANDING GUIDELINES: WHAT TO INCLUDE?
Show examples of what and what not to do.
You’re a professional, and you know better than to
mess around with logos. But many others will try
and think they’ve done a good job. They are so
wrong. You must make clear what they can and
cannot do with a design.
I love new york has done a great job defining all
the things you shouldn’t do with its logo. It has
also produced a beautiful (though bit wordy)
document.
BRANDING GUIDELINES: WHAT TO INCLUDE?
Spacing
Many non-designers underestimate the need for white
space. Include a spacing reference, especially for the
logo. Rather than specifying inches or centimeters, use
a portion of the logo (a letter or a shape) to set the
clearance. This way, whether the logo is big or small,
the space around it will be sufficient.
Blackberry not only explains its spacing policy, but also
uses the capital b in the logo to define the clearance.
BRANDING GUIDELINES: WHAT TO INCLUDE?
Colors
Always include color palettes and what the colors should
be used for. And include formats for both print and web:
CMYK, pantones and RGB (or HEX). Specify primary
and secondary colors and when and where to use them.
Channel 4 shows all of its web and print colors, and it
displays the samples/swatches below an image that helps
to define its color palette.
BRANDING GUIDELINES: WHAT TO INCLUDE?
Fonts
You’ll need to define the
typefaces to use: sizes, line height,
spacing before and after, colors,
headline versus body font, etc.
Make sure to include web
alternatives for non-web fonts.
Yale has its own typeface, which
it provides to its designers.
BRANDING GUIDELINES: WHAT TO INCLUDE?
Layouts and grids
By setting up templates and guidelines for grids, you
encourage best practices and promote consistency. In web,
preparing some generic templates can curb excessive
creativity with the layout.
For its website, the barbican has set up building blocks that
are both flexible and ordered—meaning they’re likely to
remain in a grid.
BRANDING GUIDELINES: WHAT TO INCLUDE?
Tone of voice
A huge component of a brand’s personality is the
copy, and defining the tone is a great way to keep a
brand consistent. When multiple people are writing
the copy, the brand can start to sound like it has
multiple personalities.
Easyjet has a well-defined personality, both verbal
and written, and it gives examples for both.
BRANDING GUIDELINES: WHAT TO INCLUDE?
Copy-writing guide
For those who require clients to write their own
copy but want to maintain consistency, a
copy-writing style guide can be helpful.
When reading, your brain automatically looks for
consistency and patterns, and poor copy-writing
can ruin the reading flow.
Can wants its number formats to look the same. On another
page, it defines which spelling variants to use, reminds people
of common mistakes and more.
BRANDING GUIDELINES: WHAT TO INCLUDE?
Imagery
Many designers have established a
particular tone in their photographs
and images. Show your clients examples,
and explain why they are good choices.
Show them in the context of your design,
and explain why they were chosen
for that context.
This guide offers further tips on how to
construct pages around its illustrations in the online style
sheet.
BRANDING GUIDELINES: WHAT TO INCLUDE?
Bring it all together
Show a few examples of what the logo,
photography and text look like together
and the preferred formats.
Skype has done a fantastic job of
showing how it want designers to use its
illustrations and photography. It has
examples of the subtle differences between good and
bad usage. The whole guide is beautiful and well
worth a look.
WEB GUIDELINES: WHAT TO INCLUDE?
Many people create branding guidelines but forget to include important style guides
for the web.
Just like branding guidelines, web guidelines keep everything consistent, from button
styles to navigation structure.
WEB GUIDELINES: WHAT TO INCLUDE?
Button hierarchy
Create a page that shows what all links
do (including the buttons), the appropriate
behavior of each and when to use them
(with examples of appropriate usage).
If one button is dominant, make clear the
maximum number of times it should be
used per page (usually once at most).
Define the hover, disabled and visited states for all
buttons.
WEB GUIDELINES: WHAT TO INCLUDE?

Icons
Defining size and spacing and where to use
icons is another great way to promote
consistency.
If icons should be used only sparingly,
make this clear.
WEB GUIDELINES: WHAT TO INCLUDE?
Navigation (logged in/out states)
On the web, good consistent navigation
can make or break a website.
New pages are often added to a
website after the designer is done
with it. Have you left some space for
this? Doing things like letting people
know what to do with new navigation items and
showing logged-in states make for a cleaner website.
WEB GUIDELINES: WHAT TO INCLUDE?
Basic coding guidelines
There’s no way to make someone else code like you, but you can offer others basic
guidelines that will minimise the damage, such as:
CSS class naming conventions: should they use .Camelcase or .Words-with-dashes?
Javascript integration: are you using jquery? Mootools? How should new javascript
be integrated?
Form styling: include the code, error states and more so that they understand what
style conventions you expect.
WEB GUIDELINES: WHAT TO INCLUDE?
Doc type and validation requirements: do you allow certain invalid items? Do you
expect the CSS and HTML to validate?
Directory structure: make clear how you have organised it.
Accessibility standards: should people include alt tags? Is image replacement used
for non-standard fonts?
Testing methods: which standard should they test with? Do you have staging and
production websites?
Version control: what system are you using? How should they check in new code?
WEB GUIDELINES:
WHAT TO INCLUDE?
Length
Remember, people should be able to follow branding
guidelines. A 100-page book will engage none but the
most diligent designer.
Many believe that a concise three-page overview is best
for daily use, with a more
in-depth 20-page document for more complex tasks.
Less is more, usually.
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