What happens to a company with no brand guidelines?

Some companies have a good logo and a problem that is not visible at first glance: every leaflet, every post and every proposal is made a different way. The colour changes a little, so does the typeface, the logo appears stretched or on a background it should not be on. Nobody did anything serious. All that was missing was a sheet with the rules.

What is lost without guidelines

• Consistency. Whoever sees the materials does not realise they are from the same company, and the brand loses the effect of repetition.
• Time. Each new piece forces everything to be decided again: which colour, which typeface, which tone.
• Control. When a supplier, a colleague or an intern makes a piece, nobody knows what is right.
• Trust. Small mismatches give the impression of a less careful company than it is.
• Money. Redoing what went wrong and explaining the brand to every supplier costs more than writing the rules once.

What simple guidelines should include

It does not need to be a book. A few pages hold the essentials:

1. The brand sentence. What the company does, for whom and why it is different.
2. The logo: versions (colour, black, white), clear space, minimum size and what is never done.
3. The colours, with the exact codes.
4. The typefaces, where they are used and what the alternative is when the original is not available.
5. The tone of voice: how we speak, words we use and avoid, with two or three examples.
6. Images: the style of photography or illustration and what is not used.
7. Examples of use: the email signature, a post, a proposal.

When complete guidelines are needed

They grow with the team and with the number of places where the brand appears. A company with one person and two channels can stay with two pages. One with a team, several suppliers and many materials needs more detail, and someone responsible for keeping it up to date.

How to build yours from what already exists

Do not start from zero. Gather the materials that have already gone out and look at them side by side. See what repeats and what you like to keep, and what varies for no reason. That gives you the first draft of the rules. If what you see makes you think the problem goes deeper than the design, read brand, logo and visual identity: what is the difference, and what makes a good brand sentence in value proposition in one sentence. In Brand Strategy, the guidelines come after the message is clear.

The desk audit

Print or open, side by side, ten recent materials from the company: a business card, a proposal, three posts, the website, an invoice, an email signature, a leaflet and a social profile. Mark with a pen what varies: the colour, the typeface, the size of the logo, the tone of the text. Each mark is a rule waiting to be written. Ten minutes of looking is enough to make the list. If the list is long, pick the three variations most noticeable and start with them: usually they are the logo and the colour. Ask whoever works with you to add what they saw as different: each pair of eyes catches variations the others did not.

In short

• Without written rules, materials end up looking like they come from different companies.
• The cost is in consistency, time, control and trust.
• Simple guidelines fit in a few pages: sentence, logo, colours, typefaces, tone and examples.
• They are built from the materials that already exist.

Quick questions

Who should look after the guidelines?

Someone by name: a person who updates them, sends them to suppliers and answers questions. Guidelines with no owner go out of date quickly.

Is a PDF enough?

It is enough to start. What matters is that the files (logos, typefaces, templates) are also somewhere easy to reach, for whoever needs them.

When should I review the guidelines?

Once a year, and whenever the offer, the audience or the way of communicating changes. Living guidelines are more useful than beautiful ones.