10 Brand Guideline Examples to Ensure Brand Quality

Step one in any brand strategy is to create an overall brand identity. Creating a brand identity means finding your company’s tone of voice and deciding on things like the colors, types of images, and style of fonts you’ll use.

Taking the time to do this not only can help attract new customers, but also retain the customers you already have. A strong brand identity allows them to recognize you more easily and trust what you’re selling. However, developing one can take time, and it’s important to communicate it to your team so they can employ it consistently and strategically.

The best way to help your team convey your brand identity correctly is by putting together a brand guide they can reference. A company’s brand guide houses all the decision-making, reasoning, and examples of how to use any brand assets and materials correctly.

If you’re interested in what a brand guide can do for your business, you’re in the right place. This article will explain what a brand guide is, what it can do for your company, and what you need to include. We’ll also show you some examples of strong branding guidelines. Click below to jump around:

• What is a brand guide?
• What are the brand guideline’s components?
• 10 motivational brand guide examples‍

What is a brand guide?

A brand guide, also sometimes referred to as a brand book or style guide, details every aspect of a company’s brand and how each element and asset should be used. It’s important to put those rules down in writing for every team member to follow when communicating both within the company and externally.

Brand guidelines can include a lot of different things, but the basic things to cover include how and when to use the company logo, what colors can be used and in what circumstances, and the tone of communications. They also typically discuss the types of imagery that are acceptable to use and the types of image manipulation that are allowed.

What are the benefits of a brand guide?

Taking the time to develop a brand guide can offer several benefits to your company, including:

• Saving money. A brand guide breaks down what has already been proven to work and not work. As a result, your team won’t have to use resources creating marketing from scratch or test the market response repeatedly—or worse, rebrand every few years because of inconsistencies.
• Saving time. A written document every team member can reference will save them from creating marketing documents, packaging, and more that may not match your brand standards. It means, too, that team members have a cache of brand assets—from logos to color palettes and font choices—they can automatically download and drop into their work.
• Brand consistency. This is even more important if your company has various projects or lines of products. Developing your company’s brand across all the lines of business can save you in the long term because you’ll be forced to re-brand less often.

What are the potential downsides to not having a brand guide?

Not developing a comprehensive brand guide can have a bigger impact on your bottom line than many companies understand. Some potential downsides of not having a brand guide include:

• Creating confusion. Inconsistent branding, especially in the day of social media, can create confusion for potential customers about what you do and what you believe. Confused customers will often look elsewhere to fulfill their needs.
• Negative impressions of your brand. Inconsistent branding gives the impression that the products or services you offer will also be inconsistent and unreliable. This inconsistency can make your entire company appear unprofessional. In contrast, a well-orchestrated brand will connect with customers and help build trust.
• Leaving team members behind. If your team doesn’t understand your brand, wasting time and money is a given. It also means they won’t have a vision to get behind. When your team fully understands your brand and buys into it, they become powerful assets and ambassadors for your company. ‍

‍What are the brand guideline’s components?

When putting your brand guidelines together, you’re essentially putting your brand identity and positioning in writing. Brand identities are typically made up of two areas: visual identity and verbal identity. You want to address both in your document. What specifics you include will vary depending on your business, but there are some basics that every company can benefit from documenting.

We recommend including the following components in brand guidelines:

Brand values

Before diving too deep into the details of your guidelines, make sure you have cemented and put your brand values in writing. If your company has specific beliefs around social responsibilities and ethics, it needs to be consistent in everything your customers see—from emails to in-store marketing and customer service.

Customers care about your values, and incorporating them can be a real asset to your company.

Logo

One of the primary things to consider here is when and how your brand logo is used. For example, think about where it’s placed in materials, the backgrounds it appears on, and how much space is required around it. If you have different versions of your logo, what determines when one is used over another?

Typeface

Choosing the right fonts can do a lot to show your brand personality. It’s important to keep this consistent not only so people can more easily recognize your brand but also so it’s readable to your customers. Make sure to document which typefaces you use for different types of text. Most companies will use at least two—one for the body of communications text and one for headings. Depending on the texts you use, you may need more font choices for photo captions or quote callouts, for instance.

Color palette

Brand colors are one of the first things customers may recognize when done well. At the very least, make a palette for your team members to use with your primary color scheme. The best color schemes include palettes for secondary colors and even a black-and-white color scheme.

Create rules and logic around when they should choose from which palette. Be specific about colors, too, beyond words like red, yellow, or gray. There are color palette formats you can work with that provide a code team members can use to have the precise color you want. The main formats you should stick with include CMYK, RGB, and Hex.

Iconography

The visuals and graphic design choices your team members select are other strong ways to show customers what you’re about. Everything from photography and graphics to illustrations, animations, patterns, textures, and more should be discussed. Rules for these design elements should be clearly stated regarding how to make decisions and the message the visuals should convey.

Brand voice

As you developed your brand personality, you probably discussed the tone of voice you want to strike. Is your brand voice playful, knowledgeable, emotional, or compassionate? Whatever you decide, your brand guidelines should help inform team members so they choose the type of language, formatting, and punctuation that will strike that tone and further your brand—eliciting the correct emotions from your customers.

Social media

Social media is becoming more and more important as a marketing strategy. It’s a great place to push your brand awareness and increase customer loyalty. Social media standards could be put into a separate style guide, but it’s often overlooked entirely. At the least, include it as a specific callout in your brand guidelines.

As you think through how to include social media in your guidelines, think about which platforms make sense for your company, how to align your profiles not only with your overall branding but also so your profiles on different platforms still reflect a cohesive strategy. You also want to think through what is and isn’t appropriate for social sharing.

Basic do’s and don’ts

Examples are a great way to keep team members from making mistakes. Even the most experienced team member can interpret a sentence incorrectly or just simply not understand. One way to avoid this is with a simple do’s and don’ts section in your brand guide. Come up with some specific items that you can clarify easily and include the right and wrong way for each. It’s a visual that will drive the point home.‍

10 motivational brand guide examples

If you’re sold on the idea of a brand guide but are looking for some brand style guide examples to provide a little inspiration, that’s understandable. To help, we’ve put together 10 examples of inspiring brand guidelines.

1. Starbucks

Starbucks has created an entire website dedicated to its brand guidelines, which it calls the company’s “creative expression.” It’s also a terrific example of how clearly outlining examples of brand elements can make your brand come to life. The site is easy to navigate to find what you need quickly, with a sidebar that allows you to jump around and left and right arrows at the bottom of each webpage.

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In addition to Starbucks’ theory and specific case studies, the brand covers:

• Logo
• Color
• Voice
• Typography
• Illustration
• Photography
  

2. Audi

Audi has a couple of fundamental sections in its brand guide, including brand appearance and primary brand elements. However, the brand takes it a step further with several guides that include plenty of visual examples. These guides cover everything from user interface and motion pictures to corporate sound and communication media.

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The specific brand elements covered in the basics section include:

• Rings
• Tagline
• Colors
• Typography
• Layout structure
• Imagery
• Illustration
• Icons
• Animation‍‍

3. Slack

Slack provides an online media kit that includes an overview of its brand guidelines and logos that can be downloaded. However, the focus here seems to be on partners outside the company who will be talking about them. The company starts by providing an overview of its values, tone, and brand personality before moving into the specifics of its seven primary elements, which include:

• The octothorpe
• Logo
• Color use
• Typography
• Languages
• Illustrations
• Imagery

4. Spotify

Spotify is a great example of using your brand guidelines to work with outside teams, like developers who may need to integrate your platform into what they’re doing. Its brand guide includes how to use basic elements but goes further into how to present content and metadata. It outlines how to link to Spotify, design playing views, and use the Spotify app. It’s a good example of providing a lot of information in a focused way.

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The brand elements covered include:

• Logo and naming restrictions
• Color usage
• Fonts‍

‍5. Google

Google uses its Brand Resource Center to go beyond educating team members. They also provide it for outside entities that might want to use the Google brand, like filmmakers or software developers.

It outlines brand elements and what permissions might be needed to use those elements. They also include a list of things not to do, what to ask about, and what can be done without permission—all broken down in an easy-to-navigate menu.

The specific brand elements they include are:

• Logo
• Google and Google product names
• Icons
• Colors
  

6. Uber

Uber, like Starbucks, has a dedicated, interactive website for its brand guide. It covers a lot of territories, including the brand story, identity, and rules for using its brand elements. Uber set the site up to make it easy for team members to find what they need, even including a most-requested section. It’s also worth looking at the Motion section, which outlines how the company uses imagery to convey forward motion.

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Uber has eight primary brand elements listed in its guide:

• Brand architecture
• Logo
• Color
• Composition
• Imagery
• Motion
• Tone of voice
• Typography

7. Netflix

Netflix takes a very minimalist approach to brand guidelines, as it exclusively discusses the use of its:

• Logos
• Colors
• Symbols
  

And at the top of the page, users can directly download Netflix’s logo, including the “N” symbol and wordmark. The brand even has a section on things to avoid in the context of its logo, including not stretching the “N” symbol and not adding effects to the wordmark. There are even application examples for reference.

8. NASA

NASA has put together an extensive example of brand guidelines that they call the Graphics Standards Manual, which has been used since 1976. While the PDF is pretty extensive and there’s no shortage of details and examples to ensure every brand asset is used correctly, it’s also pretty easy to navigate with a large table of contents. The brand covers a lot of ground in the guide, including:

• Logotype
• Reproduction art
• Stationary
• Forms
• Publications
• Signage
• Vehicle

9. Instagram

Instagram is not as extensive as Spotify but shares a similar need to share well-thought-out rules around how outside organizations might be incorporating or linking to its platform. Its brand guidelines focus on the logos, how to use them, and what to avoid. It also includes information on the brand style guide, a screenshot template, and a broadcast template.

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The list of brand elements they use include:

• Logos
• Icons
  

10. Skype

Skype’s brand book is a great brand guidelines example of how to make it fun for users with humor and style, which is more comic book than corporate brand guide. In addition to providing useful brand instruction, it uses illustrations, speech bubbles, and jokes throughout. When you’re finished looking through it, you know two things: how Skype intends for its brand assets to be used and that it’s possible to make brand style fun.

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Skype’s brand guide gets specific about its brand elements, including:

• Tone of voice
• Logo
• Colors
• Fonts
• Strapline
• Voice
• Imagery
  

Understaffed? Hire independent talent to create your brand guide

There’s no question that every business can benefit from consistent, well-developed brand guidelines. Building your own brand guide is a big undertaking, though, and finding the time and resources can be more than challenging. Fortunately, with Upwork, you don’t have to worry. We can connect you with creative, independent professionals to build your brand guide in no time.