What Is A Brand Guide?

I had often heard the term brand guide but never really understood what it was. Sure, the two words independently gave an idea of what it could be but I still did not quite understand what it actually was.  

I then spoke to an entrepreneur to get a clearer grasp of what the term meant. When asked the question, he explained that a brand guide is an outline that highlights the specific design for the brand and how it should be used in different contexts. It details the colors, font and everything related to the look and feel of your brand. 

It was clear at this point that it was a vital part of business and obviously your brand but why was it so important? From our discussion, I highlight some key elements and detail why it is such a key aspect of your business.

What Is Included In A Brand Guide?

Before going into the importance of a brand guide, I needed to understand what a brand is and what a brand guide entails to fully comprehend its importance.

So what is a brand?

A brand is more than the name of the business or its logo. Your brand is the story, that voice that your business is identified with. It is an experience that resonates with your customers. Your brand is what differentiates you in the market and helps to create customer loyalty. It combines all the elements such as the logo, name, mission statement etc.

Now that we understand what a brand is, let’s better understand what the brand guide is.

A guide just provides direction. So the brand guide ultimately communicates the direction of the story of your business.

Some of the things included in a brand guide are:

1. Logo Usage

This section outlines your logo and how it should be used. It normally covers the variations of how the logo can be used with or without its icon, the correct sizing, and spacing as well as how the logo color is used against different backgrounds. 

Here is a look at an example from social media tycoon, Twitter and how they explain their logo usage.

View their full brand guide here

Another detail that you can also add is examples with images of what is improper logo usage. These can include the logo being too small, having disproportionate sizing or being the wrong color. This also follows the lines of dictating what is acceptable and what is not.

Krayon Kollege, a brand catered to children, highlights this as seen below:

2. Usage Examples

These examples detail how to use the logo on different products such as bags, hats, or books. It is good to use visual images so one can have a clear idea of how the logo should be appropriately used. 

Walmart gives a simple image on how to use the logo on T-shirts, hats and office signs. You can view their full brand guide here.

3. Color Palette

This includes the primary and secondary palette. 

Primary Palette

These are the specific colors that are used for primary branding. It gives the color scheme that is used in printing, on screen and web.  

Secondary Palette 

These give the colors that can be used to complement the primary palette. 

Important: Choose your color and stick to it.

Like Skype’s example below, they describe their colors as what gives them their personality.

4. Typography

This specifies the font used including the spacing, size and capitalization usage.

Types of Fonts

There are three types of fonts included:

Primary Font – The most frequently used font for your business

Secondary Font – Like the color palette, it is the supplementary font to the primary one

Web Safe Font – This is the font that a website or device will default to if it is unable to load your own font. Arial is the most common default font that is used.

Show Your Font In Different Settings

It is best to show how it should be used in different contexts such as an information piece versus a promotional one. So showing the font in a magazine article for promotion and an article in a brochure is a good comparison. You can also include examples of how it is to be presented on stationery such as business cards and letter heads. 

Include Where To Download Fonts, If Necessary

If you have a unique font that would be a challenge obtain, you should tell where you can download it so that designers can have access to it.

As seen in the example below, Google’s brand guide, gives a description of their font and breaks it down even further with how the font type looks capitalized, the numerals etc.

How Important Is A Brand Guide To Your Business?

All of this structure in a brand guide is done to maintain consistency in the brand’s identity and adds a level of professionalism to it. It breaks down what is allowed in representing your brand and what is not.

Alternately, it is also important to note that a brand guide can be revised periodically to keep up with the changes in the constantly evolving business industry so once it is created, it does not have to stay that way forever. 

As seen with Animal Planet’s example below, their logo has already changed four times so their brand guide had to change too. However, there was some sort of consistency with the colors in the first three logos until the last change they made. So even with change, keep it simple and consistent.

Another component to having a brand guide is the ease it also affords you in communicating to designers or business developers. Imagine having to explain to the designer how your logo should look, the colors to use, the spacing, etc. One can only imagine how long that conversation would take each time. With a style guide, you can present all that in one document.

How Much Does It Cost To Create A Brand Guide?

By now, we should establish that building a business requires time, effort, and money. I found that there were free templates that were available to be downloaded and used to create it.  However, if you wanted to set yourself apart and really stand out, there were other templates available at a charge. 

Again, I wanted a space where I could weigh my options. Enter: Fiverr  

This time I decided to narrow the search based on Relevance and do a comparison between the pro services and the regular services. The Pro-Services are the professional services – those individuals that may have special training and years of expertise in the area.  The pro services are also a little more costly than the regular services.

Pro Fivver Services

Vendor	Services Offered	Cost	Reviews (out of 5 stars)	Fiverr Rating (out of 5 stars)	Turnaround Time	Response Time
jacquileekatz	1. Mission & Vision Statement 2. Voice & Tone Guidelines 3. Brand Narrative	Starting at $300	Seller communication level ★★★★★ Recommend to a friend ★★★★★ Service as described	★★★★★	5 Days	2 Hours
summarydesign	1. Brand Book Design 2. Logo Usage Guidelines 3. Color Palette 4. Typography Guidelines 5. Do’s and Don’ts	Starting at $600	Seller communication level ★★★★★ Recommend to a friend ★★★★★ Service as described ★★★★★	★★★★★	7 Days	1 Hour
nadia_percan	1. Brand Book Design 2. Logo Usage Guidelines 3. Color Palette 4. Typography Guidelines 5. Iconography 6. Do’s and Don’ts	Starting at $600	Seller communication level ★★★★★ Recommend to a friend ★★★★★ Service as described ★★★★★	★★★★★	20 Days	5 Hours
retama	1. Logo Design 2. Brand Book Design 3. Logo Usage Guidelines 4. Color Palette 5. Typography Guidelines 6. Iconography 7. Do’s and Don’ts	Starting at $1850	Seller communication level ★★★★★ Recommend to a friend ★★★★★ Service as described ★★★★★	★★★★★	14 Days	4 Hours

Regular Fiverr Services

Vendor	Services Offered	Cost	Reviews (out of 5 stars)	Fiverr Rating (out of 5 stars)	Turnaround Time	Response Time
meteor_shower	1. Logo Design 2. Brand Book Design 3. Logo Usage Guidelines 4. Color Palette 5. Typography Guidelines 6. Iconography 7. Do’s and Don’ts	Starting at $30	Seller communication level ★★★★★ Recommend to a friend ★★★★★ Service as described ★★★★★	★★★★★	2 Days	3 Hours
techgrafixs	1. Logo Design 2. Brand Book Design 3. Logo Usage Guidelines 4. Color Palette 5. Typography Guidelines 6. Iconography	Starting at $150	Seller communication level ★★★★★ Recommend to a friend ★★★★★ Service as described ★★★★★	★★★★★	5 Days	1 Hour
yhmunna	1. Logo Usage Guidelines 2. Color Palette 3. Typography Guidelines 4. Iconography	Starting at $15	Seller communication level ★★★★★ Recommend to a friend ★★★★★ Service as described ★★★★★	★★★★★	1 Day	1 Hour
kellyrother	1. Logo Design 2. Logo Usage Guidelines 3. Color Palette 4. Typography 5. Iconography 6. Do’s and Don’ts	Starting at $75	Seller communication level ★★★★★ Recommend to a friend ★★★★★ Service as described ★★★★★	Fiverr’s Choice* ★★★★★	7 Days	3 Hours

Will A Brand Guide Help You?

Every style guide is different depending on the information that is being presented. There are some with numerous pages like Walmart and others that can be a single sheet but as mentioned, the brand guide is all about maintaining consistency. The repetition of your logo’s same colors and font will help your customers identify your business and connect to your brand. This can then help with customer loyalty and reliability. Additionally, as your business continues to grow you will have a set of guidelines for your brand so that the marketers, business developers, graphic designers will all be on the same page with the representation of you. 

But now that we have highlighted the basics, you just have to decide what your brand requires and go from there.

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