Wondering Why the Heck Your Team Needs a Set of Brand Guidelines?

Brand guidelines are a very useful resource when communicating with current and future clients. Imagine your set of guidelines to be your company’s personal “branding encyclopedia.” Need to find out what colors or logo to use in a particular situation? Bam! Open your guide to that page. Want to know which font to use and why it’s the type of choice. Turn to that sheet in the document. From mission, vision, core values, and a boilerplate to color palette, logos and symbols, typography, imagery, and iconography, your brand guidelines have all the answers. When used (yes, actually used, rather than filed away in a forgotten folder), brand guidelines ensure that the end results of your projects and designs show that you and your team take pride in the details.

Not convinced yet? Here are six compelling reasons to establish brand guidelines.

1.  Your brand will be consistent.

Every time someone visits your website, holds a team member’s business card, or gets your marketing materials, they receive a perception of your company. Your brand guidelines make it possible to communicate a consistent brand identity that is immediately recognizable and reliable.

Brand guidelines are a valuable tool for all team members to keep your brand cohesive … and to hopefully stop using your logo on PowerPoint presentations as if the Incredible Hulk treated it like an attack on Stretch Armstrong.

2.  Your brand will follow set standards and rules.

Your brand guidelines are composed of standards, rules, and restrictions on how to use your brand’s visual elements. While some of your team members know your brand’s identity inside and out because of their role in your marketing or communications department, others who function in finance, sales, or production may not. Brand guidelines are a valuable tool for all team members to keep your brand cohesive … and to hopefully stop using your logo on PowerPoint presentations as if the Incredible Hulk treated it like an attack on Stretch Armstrong.

3.  Your brand will stay focused.

A brand can become fuzzy when introducing new products or services. In all the excitement of the rollout, it can be forgotten, or worse, look like it belongs to an entirely different company. By implementing brand guidelines, you have the tools to maintain consistency quickly and effectively and extend your brand family correctly to ensure your audience knows to whom the product or service is connected.

4.  Your brand will be more recognizable.

Maintaining your brand’s consistent appearance makes it more immediately recognizable to your clients. For example, a decision to settle on one logo or logo family that retains consistent characteristics helps your audience know or remember who you are in the blink of the eye instead of having to reprocess a connection. That’s why Apple’s logo always has the “bite” taken out of it on the right side; if left whole, the logo could be mistaken for another fruit like a cherry or peach if its size were reduced or expanded.

5.  Your brand’s value goes up.

When a brand’s identity is unified, it increases its perceived value. It shows that you are willing to invest in the details for yourself and implies that you will do the same for your clients. Who wouldn’t want to work with you knowing that both quality and integrity will be infused in your work?

6. Your brand can move faster.

Brand guidelines remove the mystery of what size to make a logo, where to put a comma, or what color to use on a page. Decisions have already been made so your team doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel. They can just refer to your brand guidelines and go, go, go!

With any luck, we’ve convinced you now that brand guidelines are just as important as your other pieces of corporate documentation — they’re right up there with your employee handbook and human resources policy, bylaws, strategic plan, and standard operating procedures.

You dress for success at work. Why not dress your documents for success too?

Interested in creating or brushing up on a set of brand guidelines for your team? Connect with The Bulb team today.