What are brand guidelines, what are they for and when to use them?
Producing comprehensive corporate guides can be costly and time-consuming, especially if you aim to cover all aspects of print and digital marketing materials. Simplify the brand identity design process with a brand board to quickly give you a concept you can apply across your entire website design.
What are brand identity guides?
Brand guidelines, sometimes called corporate guidelines, inform users how a brand identity design should be used and applied across different printed and digital marketing materials. Its' purpose is to ensure that marketing material, whether printed or digital, appears visually consistent across an organisation.
So the guide might say things like:
Don't change the logo colour.
Only use this font for body text in printed advertisements and websites.
Please use images of a particular style.
Corporate guides vary in length and complexity depending on the identity and intended usage.
An expensive undertaking.
Producing comprehensive corporate guides can be costly and time-consuming, especially if you aim to cover all aspects of print and digital marketing materials. In reality, unless you are creating an identity that is going to be used by a large number of different people both inside and possibly outside the organisation, a highly detailed guide of brand identity do's and don'ts is likely not needed. If budgets for the project are tight, then there is a real motive to avoid a complete brand guide.
Simplify with a brand board.
I discovered a designer implementing brand boards for identity design projects some years ago.
At the same time, I was working on website projects and using a process called "style tiles". With style tiles, instead of creating an entire website page design prototype for a home page, about page, and so on, you design small fragments of the overall website design, such as buttons or hero banners etc. This approach is more efficient and less costly than creating a whole mockup, and it provides a good idea to both the client and the designer of what the final design might look like.
Brand boards are similar to style tiles in many ways, as they are a boiled-down version of the critical design elements of an idea. I liked to think of them as a brand design cheat sheet. Here is an example below of a brand board in positive and negative design appearance.
Brand board example, positive design.
Brand board example, negative design.
Summary.
If you require a logo design or have one but lack brand guidelines for your current business, consider creating a brand board rather than a lengthy corporate guide. This option is adequate and can save you both time and money. Please contact me anytime if you need assistance improving an existing logo or website design.
