Brand Guidelines
Brand guidelines are the rulebook that keeps visual and verbal identities consistent as more people apply them.
What are brand guidelines?
Brand guidelines are a document that tells anyone representing a brand how to apply it. Offering a single point of truth for verbal and visual identity systems, their purpose is to ensure every brand experience is consistent and memorable from one moment to the next.
Every brand needs a set of guidelines, regardless of its size or category. Without a shared reference to follow, teams have no standard for executing any element of a brand, whether that be logo and type or tone of voice and art direction.
A well put-together set of brand guidelines allows a brand to build recognition, deepen consumer trust, and develop more meaningful brand equity over time. Far from a one-and-done, they live and evolve alongside a brand as it grows.
What makes a useful set of brand guidelines?
Clarity
Brand guidelines should present rules simply and precisely so that even newcomers to a brand can follow them on a first read.
Practicality
Ground guidelines in plenty of real-world applications, with distinct "do's and don'ts" examples that put your rules in context. The more relevant you can make guidelines, the less likely brand assets will get misused.
Accessibility
Static guidelines don't grow with their brand and make version control harder to enforce. By creating one dynamic document, teams have a single frame of reference that's easier to navigate and update. As brand teams continue to use AI tools in day-to-day brand work, it's worth optimising guidelines for their preferred platform(s) to add an extra layer of support.
Comprehensiveness
While brand guidelines should be sectioned for different brand teams to use as relevant (e.g. designers, marketers, writers, brand partners), they should come complete without any add-ons floating around. A thorough set of guidelines ensures fewer questions are asked later, but be careful not to overwhelm the user. Balance depth with concision to make sure people pick up the document in the first place.
How brand guidelines work in practice: Jupi
Jupi's "surreally simple" brand identity makes this decision-making AI platform unlike any other competitor in the category. But even the most surreal visual language needs logic behind it, which is why Jupi's brand guidelines are on hand to help their team keep a tight grip on their creative.
Jupi
Just as Jupi helps businesses walk the tightrope of complexity, its own guidelines allow anyone working on the brand to stop thinking and just do.
Flick to one page and you'll find detailed notes on how to maintain the Magritte-esque illustration style. Skip ahead and you'll learn how to keep motion design looking and feeling like Dali's melting clocks. And for anyone writing for the brand, there's plenty of real-world examples of Jupi's voice of certainty to keep messages as decisive as possible.
Outcome: Guidelines that keep a highly differentiated brand intact at scale, instead of drifting into safer, more generic territory the moment more people touched it.
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