“Why Brand Guidelines are important?”

Brand guidelines are a useful resource when starting a new company or when re-branding. Otherwise known as a “Brand Bible” it is essentially a rulebook for your brand, outlining all the dos and don’ts associated with the identity, character and brand values. The goal is to ensure you never drift too far from your long term branding objectives.

Brand guidelines are exactly what it sounds like; it’s a guideline for customers, employees and partners in order to keep everyone informed more about the brand. Whether it’s through direct messaging/ marketing or elements associated with the appearance it should all be covered:

• Mission
• Core Values
• Tone of Voice
• Logo/Logo Use
• Colour Palette
• Typography

All of these combined forms one big unified identity, which the brand is looking to achieve. Here are a couple of reasons, we believe brand guidelines are important:

Rules and Standards

A key purpose of your branding guide is for all stakeholders to have an aligned vision when it comes to the values of the company and how the company needs to be represented. Brand guidelines will include information regarding the design elements of the brand. This is especially useful for content creators as there are rules to follow:

• What colours to use?
• What fonts to use?
• How the logo(s) should be displayed?
• And more…

Fully featured brand guidelines will leave you not needing to ask questions when it comes to choosing colours or fonts for new pieces of work. Brand guidelines are also very useful in onboarding new members of your team, as it’s easy to use tool to help carry the brand forward.

Quick Pro Tip: If your brand guidelines say to use a certain selection of colours. Stick to them. Do not pick a colour just because you like it. This will help eliminate inconsistency with the brand image.

Consistency

This leads on from our previous point, brand guidelines are essential to help maintain a consistent brand image. This means all the content which comes from the brand, communicates the same way, uses the same colour scheme, uses the same fonts, etc. Consistency is key to building a recognisable and trusted brand. It assures the customer, they’re dealing with the same brand and helps create a culture/ a loyal customer base.

Take a look at Google, for example, you easily recognise their brand through their colours. If you’ve downloaded a new app or looking at a web page and you see these colours, your first instinct is to associate it with Google. Even if no logo is present.

Recognisable

Building a recognisable brand can be tough and it doesn’t help when you are always changing the way your brand looks. Having your customers recognise your brand stems from you familiarising them with all elements of your brand. This is where your brand guidelines come in, they’ll ensure everyone is using the logo and colours, correctly.

Sticking to your brand’s core elements will help distinguish your company in your sector. It’s easier to buy from someone we recognise and we put our confidence into companies who have invested in themselves.

Save time and money

When you have a preset guide on what colours, font type and tone everyone should be using. There will be less time wasted in the design process as people will not have to be constantly asking questions. This, in turn, should mean the design process is sped up, therefore meaning you are not wasting valuable time and resources.

Your brand will take on new internal projects every day, having brand guidelines for your business will mean everything is seamless.

Value

Last but not least, brand guidelines add value to your business. They show everyone your serious about the way you want your brand moving forward in the future. It shows everyone, here’s how the brand should look and communicate with the audience, maintain this and all should be good. Adhering to brand guidelines, will help you utilise the unified style and help your brand appear more professional, trustworthy and reliable. 

All the top companies in the world, have brand guidelines. A quick Google search will show you what you want to see. If we could ask them, they’ll probably tell us how much they value their brand and the guidelines which helped them maintain and grow their business, and how without it, it would’ve been a lot tougher.

Get in touch with iirth today and see how we can help with your branding needs.