How to create brand guidelines people will actually use

Plenty of businesses own a beautifully designed brand guidelines PDF. Sixty pages, lovely photography, a section on the “brand essence.” And almost nobody in the business has opened it since the launch meeting.

Meanwhile the office manager is making posters in whatever font looks nice, the sales team has three versions of the proposal template, and the sign maker was sent a logo screenshot from the website.

Brand guidelines only work if they’re used. That means they need to be short, practical and written for the people who actually produce your materials, which in most small businesses isn’t a designer.

Know who you’re writing for

List everyone who creates something with your brand on it. It’s usually a longer list than expected:

• Staff making social posts, presentations, documents and emails
• Sales people customising proposals and quotes
• Printers, sign makers, embroiderers and promotional goods suppliers
• Web developers and freelance designers
• Partners, resellers or franchisees

Each group needs different things. Your printer needs colour references and file formats. Your sales team needs a template and a sentence about what not to change. Design the brand guidelines around these real needs, not around what a brand book traditionally contains.

What to include, and what to cut

A useful small business set can often fit on 10 to 15 pages. Focus on the decisions people make every week.

Keep

• Logo: the versions, when to use each, clear space, minimum size and a few “don’ts” with visual examples
• Colour: every colour with HEX, RGB, CMYK and Pantone references, plus guidance on proportions
• Type: the fonts, where to get them, the fallback for Word and email, and a simple hierarchy
• Imagery: a handful of example photos that are right, and a few that are wrong
• Tone of voice: three or four principles with before and after examples
• Real examples: finished items like a social post, a flyer and a van, so people can see the system in action
• Contacts and files: where to find assets and who to ask

Cut or move elsewhere

• Long passages about brand philosophy. One page of “who we are” is enough.
• Rules for things you never produce
• Theory about why the logo shape represents growth and partnership. Interesting once, not useful weekly.

Write guidelines for the person making a poster at 4pm on a Friday, not for the board meeting where the brand was approved.

Make the right thing the easy thing

The most effective brand guidelines aren’t documents at all. They’re tools that make it hard to get things wrong.

• Templates for the things you produce most: Word and PowerPoint or Google equivalents, email signatures, social post layouts, proposal documents
• Brand kits in the design tools your team already uses, loaded with your colours, fonts and logos
• A single asset folder with clearly named logo files and approved photos, shared with everyone who needs it
• A supplier pack: a two-page summary plus the logo files, sent to any new printer or sign maker

If staff can open a template and just change the words, they won’t go looking for new fonts.

Format and access

A PDF is fine, but make sure it’s easy to find. Better still, consider a simple web page or shared document that can be updated without reissuing the whole thing. Whatever the format:

• Put the link somewhere obvious, like your intranet, shared drive homepage or onboarding checklist
• Use a version number or date so people know they have the latest
• Make the colour codes copyable, not buried in an image

Keep your brand guidelines alive

Guidelines drift out of date as soon as the business changes. Build in some light maintenance.

1. Name an owner. Someone who answers questions and approves new templates. In a small business this might be the owner or marketing lead.
2. Review twice a year. Add any new formats you’ve started producing, remove anything no longer used.
3. Collect good examples. When someone produces something that nails it, add it as an example.
4. Brief new starters. Ten minutes in someone’s first week saves months of well-meaning improvisation.

Getting it done

If you’ve got a logo and a rough idea of your colours but nothing written down, a short guidelines document and a set of templates is one of the best-value branding jobs you can do. Our brand identity projects include practical guidelines written for non-designers, and our ongoing brand management service can keep them updated and act as the go-to contact for suppliers.