You may have heard that you need a brand guide, or perhaps you’ve had an offer to make one, but what really are they? And do you need one? We’ve got everything a small business may need to know about brand guides, so you can figure out if you could benefit from one.

What is a brand guide?

Brand guides – sometimes also called style guides, or brand guidelines – are created by designers as a way to keep everything a business presents consistent.

For example, when we at Anthem Communications design a logo, it’s never just a logo. We’ll also give you all of the information you need to understand what the logo is representing, as well as how to repurpose it consistently across the areas you need it. That might be on a business card, or a website, but you’ll need to be consistent to show your customers you’re a professional.

Your brand may start with a logo, but every use of it thereafter should be able to tell the story of your company, whether it’s the tiny flick in Duolingo’s G designed to look like the eyebrows of its iconic bird logo, or making a cube sell quality by its logo being designed like a jewel. Every touch of it should be used to reinforce the brand.

One of the best in the business for this was Paul Rand, who designed not only the NeXT logo (the aforementioned jewel) but also the likes of IBM and ABC. You can watch more about his work below:

To demonstrate that concept, if you have a logo full of vivid colors, it makes sense for your website to utilize those same colors, because it makes it more instantly recognizable.

In the real world, if you think of Target, you can immediately picture the red of their logo, and the blue, white and yellow of Walmart. And you can tell from the controversy surrounding changes to Walmart’s brand, that its loyalty to consistency is valued by its customer base.

What’s in a brand guide?

A brand guide features all the rules and requirements for using your brand. That might sound like an obvious answer, but every visual aspect of your brand that makes it uniquely yours should form part of the brand guidelines. That includes things like:

• Color Palette: What is the specific color for your brand? What colors can your logo be seen on top of, or what colors should it be depending on where it is placed? As an example, the three colors we mentioned earlier that Walmart use in their brand guidelines are specifically True Blue, Spark Yellow, and White.
• Typography: The font or fonts that you use in your branding. Target for example, use Helvetica Neue as their font for their communications.  If your logo includes words, you should know the font it’s written in, and complimentary fonts for other aspects, such as adverts, fliers, or the like should be included.
• Spacing Guidelines: No one likes a squashed image, so rules for how much space is needed, or where logos should be placed, mean you’re not only consistent from content to content, but looking perfectly polished every time. Duolingo for example, gives users of its logo a minimum size that it may be reduced to, to make sure it can always be read. 

What does a brand guide look like?

Brand guides can be short and sweet at a single page, or meticulously detailed. An established company who are protective of the brand might be especially careful to document how they want to use their brand in different areas, which leads to longer ones – General Electric for example, have 772 pages of brand guidelines!

A few pages are generally the sweet spot, somewhere between 3-20. For small businesses, who don’t need reams of paper on how to place a logo in places they’ll never need to, or for whom fewer employees are likely to use the logo (and so are less likely to deviate from its core), there’ll likely be fewer pages.

Conclusion

The short answer to ‘Do I need a brand guide’ is: Probably. Brand guides are priceless in turning a simple logo or name into a full, recognizable and professional brand.

Looking and feeling consistent and professional in your branding is your first impression on potential customers and is far more likely to give the impression that your business has the same level of consistency and professionalism.

Brand guidelines can add to the cost of the branding, but if you’re able to afford it, it will pay dividends in future success and can last a lifetime.

(Hey, want to see more brand guides? Branding Style Guides has hundreds (thousands?) of them for free. You just need to sign up!)