Why You Need a Brand Book

Brand Cohesiveness

Companies have various staff members dealing with their brand, including designers, marketers, sales, creative, and more. A brand book ensures that each staff member is on the same page when it comes to the different pieces that make up the brand as a whole, so that all visual parts of the business remain cohesive.

After all, these parts are what make up the company’s personality, and a stronger brand means better marketing strategy.

Inconsistencies

Imagine a business owner handing over their card to a potential client. The client is impressed with the look and context of the business card, but after visiting the website, he/she finds that the design, layout, and colors look different. Some of the text may be inconsistent as well. Feelings of uncertainty arise because the brand does not look solid.

Aside from just the business card and website, other inconsistencies can occur in emails, packaging, letterheads, and brochures. Here you have opportunity for incorrect logo usage, mismatching colors and fonts, and unprofessional design that results in doubt for the customer.

A brand is more than just the logo – it is the whole picture of the company, encompassed by its colors, styles, design, layout, and even wording.

This is where a brand book really becomes useful.

What’s So Great About a Brand Book?

A brand book is a simple set of rules, also known as company brand guidelines or a style guide.

The purpose of it is to essentially help staff members of a business remain consistent across every detail involving their brand.

Ideally, you should have a brand book developed at the initial design phase of your business, when you have hired a team for your website design or marketing. This way they can help you develop the key pieces of your brand’s overall look that can be carried onto future team members for consistency.

If you already have your logo in place and are just now considering a brand book for continuity, you can still have your new design team take your existing vision and incorporate it into the brand book. Typically, it can be anywhere from a couple pages to about a dozen.

Your Brand Book Needs These Elements

• An overview of your brand’s vision and values
• Logo (how and when to use it)
• Copywriting ‘tone of voice’
• Color palette – across all platforms (hard copies and digital)
• Font type style – all fonts used
• Business card and letterhead design – show examples of font usage
• Social media profile pages
• Layouts across websites, brochures, flyers, and other advertising

Remember that the purpose of your brand book is to keep cohesiveness amongst all the different pieces, but not to dictate to designers too much uniformity so that they can’t be creative.

You just want your style to give the same feel – whether its on paper, in an email or on a social media platform, though it shouldn’t mean there’s no room left for designing or brainstorming new ideas.

Brand Book Users

The main users of your brand book will be your designers, agencies and consultants, photographers, and marketing staff. You can provide it to them in PDF format, hard-copy or even share a private link with them from your website.  
So, start spreading the word among your staff and introducing your brand book now.

This way, your employees and team members can begin to identify with the company brand better. They’ll see that the more solid and cohesive the visual elements are, the stronger the whole brand is.  

For more information on brand books or if you want one made for your company, look no further.