Learn All About Brand Book

You lose customers and money if you don’t do this one thing…

What is it? A good logo? A redesigned website? Or something else? Think again. This is something basic but profoundly big. We are referring to a brand book. In this blog, we will talk about it in detail and learn all about it.

Section 1: Understanding a Brand Book

But what is a brand book exactly? Let’s dive more into this topic of Brand Book…

A brand book is a key document defining the brand’s identity. It explains communication and visual strategies in a straightforward manner, forming the foundation of a company’s overall presentation.

It provides clear guidelines that ensure consistency in brand presentation, which is essential for maintaining a professional image with customers and partners. Thanks to the brand book, the brand’s image remains consistent and coherent across different platforms.

Let’s go further and know why a Brand book is important…

Importance of Brand Book:

Brand books are useful and make a brand unique if created correctly. They provide authenticity and easily show what the brand stands for.

Therefore, let’s take a look at the main goals of brand books for companies.

Explains all the elements that describe a brand:

From the brand platform and foundations to the core values of a company, brand books

explain all the elements that should describe the mission statement of a brand.

This includes key components such as brand promise, tone of voice, brand identity, and the

main brand’s mission.

The first impression that people have about a brand personality will stick with them for a while, and it will determine how a brand’s target audience perceives a company.

And although first impressions are mostly visual, understanding the vision statement of a

brand can drive consumer passion efficiently.

Establishes a consistent brand identity:

Coherence and consistency across the many communication channels are some of the most important aspects of a brand image.

Business consistency helps customers to build trust, and statistics show that almost half of the consumers prefer to support brands that they know and trust over the ones that they don’t.

Beyond focusing on visual elements, which are also important, a brand book is the best

brand guide to follow to achieve similar brand messaging on all channels.

Educates people on a common brand culture:

Following the guidelines in a brand book ensures that all individuals in a company are on the same page.

The company’s own brand book it’s its “brand bible,” and new employees must comprehend and internalize the brand persona that the business tries to showcase.

This is especially useful for creating employee consistency.

Picture this: an employee goes to work dressed in a suit, and then the next day, the same person comes wearing ripped jeans, sunglasses, and clothing styles that are not on-brand.

This can certainly contradict the steadiness that a brand is trying to achieve.

Coordinate actions, marketing efforts, and the branding strategy:

When a brand communicates, it should do it in a standardized and invariable way.

Imagine that a brand has different logos on different platforms or different tones of voice; this would negatively impact important branding elements.

Therefore, in order to coordinate actions and marketing efforts, most brands follow the communication guidelines established by the brand book.

This allows the possibility to show the company’s purpose similarly in press releases, social media channels, websites, and other channels.

Fosters brand evolution:

Brands evolve over time - that’s a fact. Brand books are a great way to demonstrate the evolution of a brand through the passing of the years.

For instance, if the brand logo has changed, then comparing the old one to the new logo is a great way to show how the brand has changed.

Of course, the key element of a brand’s personality is its purpose. But the future is bright and has new things to offer, which is why brand books also help brands transition from one stage to another smoothly.

Section 2: 6 Essential elements of Brand Book

Brands create a brand book with a previously determined purpose in mind. Although a brand style guide can be heavily different from one brand to another, there are a set of brand book key elements and visual guidelines to follow.

Logo:

A brand’s logo is the most important visual element of a company. It’s necessary to establish logo usage guidelines based on the brand’s needs and communication goals.

For example, some logos need to be resized or placed differently depending on the design elements of a social media post or a billboard.

This creates the need to determine how the company must use its logo across all channels to ensure great logo optimization.

Colours:

The primary and secondary colours of your brand determine the entire visual aspect that your target audience will associate with it when they think about the company.

Standardizing the brand’s colour palette across all channels is a great way to maintain visual consistency.

It’s standard practice to pick four or fewer main hues as your primary colour palette. This type of book should define when and how to use each colour:

●  Which one is used for the text and which for the design elements?

●  Which colour is for the logo, and which is for the background to make it “pop”?

Typography:

Likewise, having a defined font style is one of the best ways to keep the brand’s message

unified.

Many brands use only one or two primary typefaces, so choosing the appropriate fonts and sizes for different types of content is necessary.

Imagery and visual language:

A brand's visual language shows what the brands want to transmit to its audiences with its visual content.

Photos, illustrations, interactive elements, and graphics must always follow the brand guidelines on all communication channels to properly transmit the brand identity to everyone.

Brand tone, story, and values:

One of the most important parts of a brand's personality is the words they use to express its voice.

There are words that brands like, and words that brands don’t like. The implementation of guidelines regarding the brand’s tone of voice is important to ensure on-brand communication in a persistent way.

Some brands will have a more serious and formal approach, whereas other brands will want to sound more confident and direct.

Brand guidelines, style, and personality:

If you look at the most relevant brand book examples, you will soon realize that they have a defined style that goes along with the public perception of the brand.

Therefore, when companies create a brand book, they make all the necessary changes to ensure that people can quickly identify the brand book with the overall sentiment of the business.

Brand books are customized and adapted to the needs of the brand, which means that even if there are basic steps to follow when creating a brand book, the truth is that the key relies on adapting the book to the unique points of view of the company.

Section 3: How to Create a Brand Book

Now that you know all the elements that make a professional brand book, it’s time to find out how to make it really great and bring your mission vision to life.

Here are the points for creating a Brand book so that you are ready to create your own powerful marketing tool.

Identify your brand book’s target audience:

Before you get to work, you should think about who will be actively reading and using your brand book. This will help you avoid including irrelevant information. For example, should a brand book made for external use feature a section addressing your team members?

Keep it simple:

Everyone should be able to understand your brand, what it is about and how its visual and editorial elements should be used. Go straight to the point here and avoid technical terminology at all costs.

Make it visual and attractive:

Don’t overdo it of course, but a brand book that depicts your brand in a visual way will be more attractive to its readers. It is also your chance to display your brand’s creativity.

Set Imagery Guidelines:

Style guides should also include imagery guidelines that define the limits of the visual imagery you want to complement your company’s brand voice and tone. Your brand guidelines should specify parameters for photography, illustrations, icons and other visual elements. This ensures the overall aesthetic of images is consistent throughout your branding.

Always provide value:

The aim here is to create a document that will actually be used. It should be useful to its target audience and provide concrete information regarding how your brand should be represented across all channels. If your brand book includes specific information regarding your logo and Photoshop, it might make sense to add a dedicated tutorial.

Make sure your brand book is easy to navigate:

As this document is likely to be fairly long, make it easy for your readers to easily find what they are looking for. Cisco, for example, has a brand platform with its dedicated menu.

Update your brand book regularly:

Your brand is in constant evolution, so your brand book should reflect that too. If you’ve got a new logo, colour palette or font, be sure to update your brand book immediately.

Make it easy to find your brand book:

The people who might need to use your brand book should be able to find it easily. You could upload it and add a link to your website.

Add FAQ section:

Consider adding an FAQ section to your brand book with around 20-30 questions your readers might have after reading your brand book. Remember to include a way to contact someone about it as this will make you seem more trustworthy and approachable.

Provide Usage Guidelines:

It is also important to establish the contexts in which some or all of the brand guidelines

may or may not be automatically allowed for use without additional expressed permission.

Your style guide should set specifications for print materials, social media, digital platforms, advertising, packaging, and other touchpoints that are part of your brand.

Section 5: Brand Book Examples from Leading Brands

Here are some examples of brand guidelines that creatively use their visual identity to express their product, personality, and purpose.

Airbnb:

Airbnb is another company that offers very clear brand guidelines. Its single-page UI Toolkit has examples of the colours and colour combinations that brand representatives are permitted to use.

As an app logo, the instantly recognizable “Bélo” logo symbol, is one of its defining features. There are strict mentions of displaying their icons, buttons, and clickable features in the right colours and shapes.

Uber:

Uber’s brand guidelines dive deep into how to use spacing in its logo and fonts. Having ample space is key to maintaining its modern and minimalistic look.

The guide covers app guidelines as well as the animations and imagery acceptable for their brand. Uber keeps things simple with a black-and-white colour palette and crisp imagery.

Spotify:

Spotify’s brand guidelines make it easy for designers to access the information needed to create marketing materials for the brand. It covers how branding can be used within external platforms and apps, and when its content is shared.

It includes RGB colour codes, acceptable font uses, and examples of how to use their branding in partnerships.

Dropbox:

Dropbox brand guidelines go beyond providing the standard logo, colour, and typography guide. The brand includes information about acceptable shapes, and how an on-brand customer journey should look for dropbox.

What’s unique about dropbox is its intense detail in how to use its brand in various layouts and compositions. It also divides product and marketing visuals by using illustrations within the product interface, and photography for marketing materials. 

Conclusion:

A brand style book is very important for keeping your brand’s identity consistent and distinctive. As your company grows, this document will help with keeping the larger number of employees on the same page with the requirements and standards of the business.

This ensures your brand sticks in your target audience’s mind by always remaining faithful to your logo, colours, tone of voice, typography, and other vital elements that constitute your business.

As your business grows and matures, this will help to build a trustworthy and reliable experience for everyone who engages with it which means more customers and more profits.

The best branding agencies can provide all the necessary guidance for creating a brand book. Contact us, and we will be happy to help you.