Brand Guidelines, Brand Style Guide, and Brand Guidance Kits are the basic concepts that will help you set a successful brand strategy. They sound alike and are sometimes used interchangeably. They refer to the same concept: a set of rules and standards that ensure that your brand’s representation is relevant and consistent across many media and platforms. However, they are not the same.
If you’re ready to stop wasting time searching for and redesigning your logos, templates, or presentation rules, then it is a good idea to learn what the brand guidelines, style guide, and guidance kits are, and use them to make your brand easier to manage and more effective.
BRAND SLANG DEFINED
BRAND GUIDELINES
Brand Guidelines contain the brand identity and the visual and verbal elements that represent it. They outline the brand philosophy and mission, as well as guidelines on how a brand should appear, behave, and communicate. Therefore, they are a broader term that includes not only the brand’s appearance but also its mission, vision, values, stories, and the demographics of the end users.
Brand Guidelines Template
If you want to master the essentials of creating strong, cohesive brand elements, keep on reading this blog series. If you’d like a hands-on resource to follow along, I’ve designed a simple, sample template to support you as you go. It is available on Etsy as an easy-to-edit PowerPoint file. It was created in Canva, and if you request a copy of the Canva version at the time of purchase, I’ll be happy to send you that as well.
BRAND STYLE GUIDES
Brand Style Guides, on the other hand, outline the styles that designers and copywriters should use to consistently present different brand elements. The guides can include:
- Logo files and usage (versions, colors, placement, spacing)
- Color palettes (primary, secondary, shades, and tints)
- Typography (fonts for titles, headlines, and copy; sizes, weights, and spacing)
- Illustration style (photography guidelines and presets, icons, mockups, etc.)
- Graphic elements (patterns, textures)
- Layouts (style sheets and templates for frequently used documents, business cards, labels, emails, etc.)
- Sound and tone of voice (how the brand should sound in written or spoken communications)
In addition to these two, some companies also use the expression Brand Guidance Kit.
BRAND GUIDANCE KIT
Brand Guidance Kits are typically practical tools that help teams implement the brand guidelines and style guide in real-world scenarios. While they might not be as comprehensive as a full brand guidelines document, Brand Guidance Kits provide resources and templates to be used in upcoming brand projects. They speed up the design process and ensure brand consistency. Examples may include:
- Downloadable files such as logo versions, color codes, and font files
- Pre-made elements like icons, backgrounds, and stock images
- Templates for social media posts, presentations, or marketing materials
- Step-by-step guides for applying the brand’s visual elements in specific contexts (e.g., how to format email signatures, print document layouts, business cards, etc.)
The guidance kit files are usually the hands-on files, to be used by external collaborators; therefore, they should be kept in folders that can be easily shared.
To summarize:
- Brand Guidelines are the rules and strategies behind the brand’s identity
- The Brand Style Guide is a set of instructions on how to implement the rules
- Brand Guidance Kits are tools and templates that help people put those rules into action efficiently.
CREATIVE ASSETS
All those pre-designed brand elements, verbal and visual, are called Creative Assets. They are called “assets” for a good reason. They can be your brand’s most valuable ambassadors. The stories, taglines, and statements will talk about your business on many platforms. Visuals, like business cards, social media graphics, and photography, will appeal to your audience through shapes and colors. By consistently applying a unified style across media, your brand will create a strong, lasting impression, fostering recognition, trust, and loyalty.
CONSISTENCY in your company’s visuals and presence is priceless. It’s the only way to be RECOGNIZED and REMEMBERED.
Don’t blow it by applying different trends every time you show up!
Besides, you will soon discover how time-consuming it is to create the assets. Therefore, they deserve to be preserved and stored in a well-designed “warehouse”: a Brand Assets Library.
At the end of this series, I’m sure you will create your own. To help with this, I assembled an Assets Library Sample (a free PDF download) that lists many folders you may consider. For now, as you go through the chapters, remember to save all your ideas and projects.
And the first important idea is to make sure that you choose a niche that is right for your brand.