Chances are you’ve heard the term “Brand Guidelines being thrown around before, but you might not be entirely clear on what brand guidelines are, and just why they are important? The short answer is that brand guidelines are a set of clearly defined rules and protocols for building a brand guide to how your corporate messages, images, graphics, colors, and logo, represented to your audience. Though brand guidelines go far beyond just the basic rules of how your company displays its visuals.

In a broader sense, brand guidelines are meant to drive consistency for just how your company’s public persona is presented to potential new as well as existing customers. They also give a clear defining strategy for how your collective media presence operates. This includes things like your company’s website, their designs and graphics schemes as well as collaterals, and even your social media presence.

This makes brand guidelines the lifeblood of how you establish, as well as maintain your brand identity over time. If your marketing strategy needs to flex to meet a new goal or to make the most of a new opportunity, your brand guidelines will help serve as a barometer to make sure you don’t stray too far from your established brand identity.

What Needs To Be In Your Brand Guidelines?

- The Company’s Primary Color Palette

- The Company’s Secondary Color Palette

- Tagline & Logo Use

- Rules For The Use Of Abbreviations & Acronyms

- Typography & Fonts

- Logo Size Requirements

- Brand Tone

- Grammar & Punctuation Rules

- Noting Unacceptable Uses

Why Are Brand Guidelines Important?

A lot of companies have umbrella brand guidelines that represent both the corporate message as well as specific marketing campaigns that cater directly to specific target markets. They are especially important in your company’s website, content creation, and social media presence.

New and existing customers want to see the same voice, grammar, logo, and visuals on digital media as they do in physical media. If you are outsourcing your web design or social media management to a third party, you need to make sure that they have a copy of all applicable brand guidelines to ensure a seamlessly consistent presence.

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