You know those days you walk out of the house, amazing outfit on, sweet shoes, accessories to match and just think “Damn, I look good”?
This was not an accident. You know your style, you know what suits your vibe, which colours go well with you skin tone and hair.
Don’t you wish you could feel like that everyday? I know for most (including me) it’s sporadic at best to nail that feel, but it doesn’t have to be that way when it comes to your brand.
You might have several people working on digital and print media for you. If they are not coordinated and given adequate guidelines, your brand, your style, the way people see and relate to you, could be left to chance, or worse, that costly (in more ways than one) monster… Overdesign! EEK! No thank you!
Enter our hero – Branding Guidelines!
A brand guideline is your all in one style guide that stops your brand from having a fashion faux-pas.
It outlines all of the different aspects of your businesses visual language. From fonts and colours, to different variations of your logo and when to use them, your guideline will have everything you need to safely leave the content, digital and print media you need for your brand to be created by anyone in the business. All without having to worry about any maverick, sloppy or just plain irrelevant design work coming out!
A Branding guide can be as simple or comprehensive as you like, with some going into detail of application, from your basic letterhead and business card, all the way through to vehicle applications, digital media interpretation and uniforms.
Still, you might be sitting there thinking, “Nah, why would I need one of those? My brand looks awesome already, and I’m a total visual badass!”
You may be right there, BUT maybe you can’t always be there to watch over your business’ design work.
Sometimes, outside vendors or other staff are going to need to use your logo, or create something for the business that you don’t have time for, but must have completed on deadline. Providing them with a comprehensive Brand Guideline will help maintain your brand when its not directly in your hot, stylish little hands.
Maybe you are already spending too much time focusing on your brands style instead of getting on with the business of business. There are already so many things that take up our precious time.
Why not use a Brand Guideline as an opportunity to automate your role as overseer of your brands look?
A Brand guideline doesn’t just make your brand more consistent, it also saves designers heaps of time (and likely saves you money) when creating new content for you, by laying out the essentials they need to include in all their work, and the framework on which they can create new content and media for you.
So, if you feel the need to make your Brand’s fashion choices easier, so that both you and your design team can get on with the important stuff, drop me a line and I’ll whip its wardrobe into shape with your very own Brand guideline!