What is a brand guide?
A brand guide is a rulebook that describes a brand’s typology, colours, logos, images, etc. This guide helps brands represent themselves, both to the general public and their target audience. All content pieces, whether they are blog posts, social media posts, corporate presentations, or business cards, can be better written and designed following the guidelines mentioned in the brand guide.
Essential Components of a Brand Guide
We’ve listed the essential components of a brand guide in this blog post. Read on to learn more about them.
Brand Story
The first part of any brand guide must focus on the brand's purpose and how it came into being. This section describes the brand timeline, the founder’s mission, vision, and how the founder intends to add value to businesses through the brand story. This brand story is also an opportunity to showcase the brand’s unique personality, what the brand stands for. For example, a playful brand can write its brand story in a fun, cheerful manner.
Brand Logo
The visual elements of a brand are important to consider as these will help the target audience familiarise themselves with it over a long time. One of the most important brand visual elements is the brand logo.
A brand logo is a name, symbol, drawing, etc., that helps people recognise it and showcases the brand’s unique identity. There are two types of brand logos: primary brand logos and secondary brand logos.
a. Primary Brand Logo: The primary brand logo is the most used brand logo that will be the main representation of the brand and will be used most frequently as a part of the brand’s communication techniques.
b. Secondary Brand Logo: While the primary brand logo will be the main representation of the brand, the importance of the secondary brand logo cannot be ignored. The secondary brand logo is chosen when the primary brand logo cannot be used in a specific place, like on a document representing the brand. For example, the primary brand logo may be too big, and hence, the brand may use the secondary brand logo in a brand document.
Logo Usage Guidelines
Creating a brand logo that represents your brand is not sufficient. It would help if you define specific logo usage guidelines that define how your brand's logo must (and must not) be used. For example, you may specifically mention that the brand logo colours must not be changed, the brand logo must be of a specific size, colour, etc., and this must be kept the same across multiple social media platforms or forms of brand communications like official documents.
Colour Palette
Besides a brand’s logo, another important component of it’s brand guidelines document is the colour palette. The colour palette refers to the range of colours that the brand wishes to use in all platforms it uses to represent itself, like official documents and social media platforms. So, for example, Zomato uses the colours red and white to represent itself on social media platforms, and these colours stay consistent.
Brand Typography
Brand typography is one way to reflect the brand’s colours, personality, and tone. Brand typography refers to the visual meaning of a brand, which changes according to the font and colours selected in the brand’s typography. While determining how the brand’s typography should be like, the blank space, font size, and color contrast are all critical things to consider.
Brand Voice
The distinct personality of a brand is reflected through a brand’s voice. The brand voice refers to how a brand will interact with its customers. For example, a brand’s voice may be authoritative, relaxed, reliable, passionate, etc. To determine the brand voice, the brand must consider the characteristics of the target group. For example, consider the age of the target audience, their location, and so on, while determining the voice you must use. Ask yourself whether a specific form of messaging would resonate with them before deciding your brand’s tone of voice.
Brand Imagery
Brand imagery refers to a brand’s aesthetics that evoke certain feelings in the target audience’s minds. It focuses on ensuring that the right message is conveyed to the brand’s audience and they have strong emotions like hope, optimism, reliability, etc., whenever they come across or engage with the brand. Some attributes related to brand image may include minimalism, straightforwardness, boldness, etc. Brand imagery is communicated through the images that are used to describe the brand, like a brand’s logo, marketing communication, etc.
Let’s understand this with an example of an interior designer who specializes in minimalistic designs. Their interior work depicts their brand imagery and hence is represented in their marketing efforts as well.
Another example is that of a fashion designer who specializes in bold designs. Their designs depict brand imagery as bold colors, bold designs, and much more.
This way, a brand’s portfolio/ communication/products depict their ideology for brand imagery. This helps the brand’s audience relate to the brand better.
Conclusion
By reading this blog, we hope you’ve got a better understanding of how you can create a brand guidelines document for your company and the essential components of a brand guide like the logo, typography, etc.
Do you wish to improve your branding and communication efforts? Let’s Build Brands is a marketing agency in New Delhi helping firms create marketing strategies to attract their target audience and market themselves in the digital space. If you wish to learn more about the services offered by Let’s Build Brands, head over to this page.