Brand Guidelines
A great brand is only great if it’s used consistently.
Brand guidelines turn your identity into a system anyone can follow, so your logo, colours, type and voice look right everywhere, whoever is making the next piece.
Brands don’t usually fall apart in one dramatic moment. They drift. A stretched logo here, an off-brand colour there, a new hire using last year’s template. Brand guidelines stop the drift before it starts.
What are brand guidelines?
The rulebook that keeps you looking like you.
Brand guidelines (also called a brand guide, style guide or brand book) document how your brand should look and sound. A complete guide covers your logo and its variations, clear space and misuse, colour palette with print and digital values, typography, iconography, photography direction, layout examples and brand voice.
We create guidelines as part of every branding project, and we also build them for existing brands that never had one. For Kunaferia we built a full guide from vision and values to photography; for Love Law Firm the guide spells out every logo, colour and usage rule.
Why it matters: a cohesive brand builds recognition and trust. And if you’ve ever wondered which logo file to send where, read our guide to logo file types.
What goes into our brand guides.
Everything your team, printers and partners need to get it right.
Ready to make your brand consistent?
How we build brand guidelines.
Clear enough for a new hire. Detailed enough for your printer.
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01Audit
Brand Audit
We gather every logo, file and piece of material you have and see where things have drifted. Stretched logos, five slightly different blues, a font that quietly changed somewhere along the way: we find it all, without judgement.
The brand audit shows what’s working, what’s inconsistent and what’s missing entirely. You get a clear picture of how your brand really shows up today, and we get the starting point for rules that will actually stick.
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02Define
Rules & Standards
We set the rules for logo, colour, type, imagery and voice: clear space and minimum sizes, colour values for print and screen, a type hierarchy, a photography style and how your brand should sound in writing.
The aim is guidance your team can follow, not a rulebook that gathers dust. Each standard is shaped by how your brand gets used day to day, and once they’re agreed, we design them into a guide people will want to open.
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03Design
Guide Design
We design the guide itself, with real examples, not just rules. Seeing a correct social post beside a common mistake teaches more than a paragraph of instructions ever could.
Your brand guidelines are laid out to be skimmed as well as read, so a designer, printer or new hire can find what they need in moments. Once the guide is approved, we package it with the files and templates your team needs to put it into practice.
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04Deliver
Files & Templates
You get the guide plus organized logo files and templates your team can use. Logos come in every format and colour version, named clearly so finding the right one takes seconds instead of a dig through old email threads.
Templates for everyday materials make staying on brand easy, even without a designer in the room. Together, they turn your brand guidelines from a document into a working toolkit that keeps everything consistent as your business grows.
Guidelines people actually use.
A brand guide is only useful if it’s clear, practical and easy to find. We write guidelines for the people who will actually use them, from your marketing team to a printer or freelancer, so your logo, colours, type and voice look right whoever is making the next piece.
Practical, not precious
Real examples of what to do, not just what to avoid. We show your brand applied to everyday pieces like social posts, documents and signs, so people can follow what works instead of interpreting rules.
Print and digital
Specs for every format, from Pantone and CMYK to RGB and HEX. Your colours stay consistent whether they appear on a business card, a trade show banner or a website button.
Organized files
Every logo version is named so anyone can find the right one. Files are sorted by format and use, so nobody pulls a blurry screenshot from an old email again.
Built to grow
Guidelines are easy to update as your brand evolves. New sub-brands, products or templates can be added without starting over, and the guide stays the one place everyone checks.
We’ve earned some good company. Recognize anyone?
They took the time to truly understand our brand and vision, and translated that into a website that is both visually appealing and highly functional.
Beyond their technical expertise, what truly stood out was how personally invested the team was in our success. They took the time to understand our business priorities and consistently aligned their work to meet those objectives.
We had an incredibly short and aggressive timeline that Envy Design Co. met, delivering an incredible website. After the websites were launched, leads continued to come in.
Ready to build something worth envying?
Tell us a bit about your goals and we’ll be in touch as soon as we’re able to explore how we can help bring your vision to life.
Frequently asked questions.
What’s included in brand guidelines?
A complete guide covers your logo system, colour palette, typography, iconography, photography direction, layout examples and brand voice. We tailor the depth to your business.
The goal of brand guidelines is to make good decisions easy for anyone using your brand. That includes logo spacing and minimum sizes, what not to do with your logo, colour values for print and screen, font hierarchy, photo style and examples of layouts for common materials. The brand voice section helps your team write consistently, with tone, key messages and examples. A small business might need a concise guide; a larger organization with many teams and suppliers may need something more detailed. We'll recommend the right level for how your brand is used.
Can you create guidelines for a brand you didn’t design?
Yes. We audit your existing materials, tidy up inconsistencies and document the rules so everyone follows the same system.
Plenty of businesses have a brand that's been used for years without clear rules, which often leads to stretched logos, off-brand colours and a dozen slightly different fonts. Our audit gathers your current materials, finds what's working and identifies the inconsistencies. We may recommend small refinements, like fixing colour values or creating missing logo versions, before documenting everything in clear brand guidelines. If we find bigger issues, we'll tell you honestly and outline options. Either way, you end up with a system your team and suppliers can actually follow.
What format will we receive?
A designed PDF guide, organized logo files in every format you need and, where useful, templates for everyday materials.
The PDF brand guidelines are easy to share with your team, printers, web developers and agencies. Logo files are organized by version and colour, with formats suited to print, web, signage and social media, so nobody has to guess which file to use. Templates might include letterhead, presentations, social media posts or email signatures, set up in the tools your team already uses. Together, these make it simple for anyone to produce on-brand materials. If you need guidelines in a different format, such as an online version, let us know and we'll discuss it.
What’s the difference between brand guidelines and a style guide?
The terms are often used interchangeably. A style guide sometimes focuses on visual rules only; our brand guidelines also cover voice and messaging.
You'll hear brand book, brand standards, style guide and brand guidelines used to mean similar things. What matters is what's inside. A visual style guide might cover logo use, colour and typography and stop there. Our brand guidelines go further by including how your brand should sound: tone of voice, key messages and examples of writing that fits your brand. That's useful because consistency isn't only visual. When your website, emails and sales materials sound alike, your brand feels more trustworthy and recognizable.
How much do brand guidelines cost?
It depends on how much needs to be defined and documented. Brand guidelines are included in our full branding projects, which start at $7,500.
If you're starting a branding project with us, brand guidelines are part of the work, so your new identity arrives with clear rules for using it. If you already have a brand and just need guidelines, the cost depends on how much documentation and tidying up is needed: a well-organized brand with a few gaps is quicker than one with years of inconsistencies and missing files. Templates and voice and messaging work also affect scope. We'll review your materials and send a clear, individual quote.
Related
Part of a bigger picture
Brand guidelines come out of branding and identity design and guide everything after, from website design to marketing collateral and signage. See guidelines in action for AGE Inc. and Steel Rollin Ranch.
Resources & articles
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