Brand guidelines are the cornerstone of any strong brand on the market. They play a vital role in building client trust and bringing brand consistency to the table.
And that’s something you can’t ignore because the success of your brand messaging depends on consistency. It’s one of the things that entice your target audience to buy from you time and time again.
Besides, unequivocally, modern marketing communications rely heavily on multiple communication channels. And brand consistency ties in all those channels.
In this article, you’ll learn what brand guidelines contain. But most importantly, you’ll find varied brand guidelines examples and a few branding templates to help you create your own guidelines.
10 Best Brand Guidelines Examples & Templates
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat Are Brand Guidelines?
Brand guidelines are a document that defines how to communicate your brand across channels. And it determines not only visual but also verbal and written communication rules.
With solid brand guidelines, the tone of your messaging will consistently express your brand. It’ll influence the way your clients feel about your products. And as a result, it will help determine how customers feel about your products’ worth.
Clients recognize brands with strong brand guidelines. Plus, those guidelines are a component of your brand identity. Without them, you wouldn’t have a brand that speaks uniquely to your clients. And most certainly, you wouldn’t be able to compete against your competitors.
You would also run into trouble nurturing a unified image of your brand. Because your channels and team members—marketers, designers, and Web developers—could be all over the place.
And why is a unified brand image essential? A brand that looks and sounds cohesive gives a sense of security and reliability, and both emotions drive sales.
Summarize this article for me please10 Brand Guidelines Examples to Help Kickstart Some Inspiration
Now that you know where to find some helpful templates, it might help to see some great brand guideline examples as well. So, here you have 10 brand guideline examples to inspire you while putting your brand guidelines together with our templates.
1. ClickUp
ClickUp’s brand assets are all downloadable from our branding page. From the logo and icons to an assortment of screenshots of our app, they’re all available to you in this complete brand style guide.
We also included rules for using ClickUp’s logo, color palette, and fonts. And if you need more information about sharing our logo usage and attributing our trademarks, check our trademark guidelines.
2. Spotify
Spotify starts its design guidelines by stipulating how to accompany metadata from its platform—such as an album’s name or artwork—with the brand. The guidelines also dictate how to embed, link to, and play Spotify content.
These rules make sense because Spotify’s business heavily depends on respecting copyrights. But the brand’s design guidelines contain more instructions—about Spotify’s logo usage and its variations, color palette, and fonts.
Spotify’s design brand style guide includes a lot of dos and don’ts. And you can download the brand’s logo and icons, which guarantees their consistency wherever they appear.
3. Netflix
Some of Netflix’s brand assets are only available by signing in to their branding platform. But some of those assets and guidelines are available to everyone—those concerning their logo placement and wordmark.
That’s why Netflix’s public brand style guide focuses on visual aspects such as color and spacing. The guidelines also present various dos, don’ts, and examples, which improves their comprehension and quick reference.
4. Slack
Slack published its brand style guides under its media kit. The latter consists of downloadable product screenshots, logos, and photos of Slack’s leadership team members, other employees, and offices.
But we could easily argue that Slack’s media kit is part of its brand guidelines. After all, as with any other examples of brand guidelines, both were born from the need to shape Slack’s brand image, right?
Slack’s downloadable brand guidelines are quite comprehensive. But they’re also clean, well-organized, and easy to read. The text is well-balanced with white space and just enough imagery, which, together with the chosen fonts, make it highly appealing.
5. Zendesk
Zendesk’s branding team named their brand guidelines “Brandland.” And they’re as broad in scope as their name’s creative.
The guidelines contain the most traditional elements of such a resource. But they also contain many other elements, such as film shooting, marketing planning, office design, and branded merchandise rules, which are rare in brand guidelines.
6. Conklin Media
One of the most distinctive elements of Conklin’s brand guidelines is the brand persona. That’s who the brand would be if it were a person, and in the case of Conklin, that’s Spiderman with two kids.
Conklin’s branding specialists built the persona by breaking down the brand values into adjectives. Then, they selected a character whose personality matched those adjectives—Spiderman.
Finally, the specialists added experience and wisdom to the character’s traits to make it more mature. And now, Conklin’s writers create website copy by imagining what dad Spiderman would say.
7. Checkr
Checkr starts the brand guidelines by stating its “core creative concept,” which is “clear.” And this concept is the idea that sustains the company’s entire brand experience.
The guidelines also declare the brand attributes—or values—and contain:
- A downloadable logo kit
- Instructions on how to use the logo
- An explanation of how the photographs they use should feel like
- A downloadable color palette
- The brand’s fonts
8. PartnerStack
Besides the logo, color, and font specifications, PartnerStack’s brand guidelines focus on brand voice and tone. So, although they didn’t include a brand persona in the guidelines, PartnerStack’s team members can still realize how to communicate the brand.
All they have to do is keep in mind the voice traits described in the brand guidelines.
9. SEO.London
SEO.London is a small, two-person SEO agency, yet they’re fully aware of the importance of branding. That’s why they commissioned the complete branding of their website and logo to a design agency.
And the first step the design agency took was to define SEO.London’s brand guidelines. As a result, SEO.London’s website sets itself apart from its competitors’, which used ready-made graphic solutions instead of developing its own brand guidelines.
10. Fashion League
Fashion League didn’t create a separate document with their brand guidelines. But its mission statement and core color are so strong that you can grasp the bold tone of the brand from them.
The color purple strikes the eye across Fashion League’s content. It means power and is entirely aligned with the brand’s mission.
Summarize this article for me pleaseThe Essential Brand Guidelines Checklist
Inspired by some great brand voice guidelines examples, we compiled this checklist for you. It pinpoints elements to include in your brand guidelines, so use it while assembling or reviewing your document.
1. Mission statement
Why did you create your company in the first place? What’s the purpose of your business? And what difference do you want your brand to make in your clients’ lives?
Your mission is distinctive and consistent throughout time. And that’s why you must include it in your brand guidelines. Explain it clearly and objectively with plain words, so everyone in your team understands.
And align the remaining elements in the brand style guide document with the common purpose that your mission represents.
2. Brand values
What are your company’s principles, ethics, and beliefs? What are the pillars of everything you do in your organization? And what does your team stand for in business?
For instance, one of your brand values may be sustainability. And that means you want to attract clients who resonate with sustainable businesses like yours. So, your messaging must reflect your sustainability concerns.
Translate your brand values into the visuals and words you use in your marketing communications. Because what your clients see and the words they listen to and read about your brand are equally important. And on top of that, your values guide your team’s decisions and activities on all brand elements.
3. Target audience
Who are the readers or listeners of your content? How old are they? What do they do for a living? And what problems are they facing—especially those you can solve with your product?
Answering these questions will help you unfold your buyer persona or target audience. And that persona will assist your team in communicating the brand identity effectively with your prospects and current clients.
PRO TIP
Define your buyer persona during your marketing planning process and document the definition in your brand guidelines.
4. Brand voice
Include your editorial guidelines in your brand guidelines. That’s the language—visual and written or spoken—your team members must use. And it’s also the language that’ll evoke your brand’s emotions and mood in your target audience.
For instance, some brands are sophisticated or formal, whereas others are casual and sometimes even funny. Some are direct, bold, or provocative, whereas others are neutral. A brand identity can be educational, whereas others are entertaining.
But whatever brand guidelines examples you describe, do it from two perspectives. For instance, clarify how your team must refer to your product’s advantages and, especially, its limitations. Designate which terms and expressions to use as opposed to forbidden ones, and elucidate on punctuation as well.
Altogether, your editorial guidelines will give the impression that one person wrote all your content. And that’s consistency.
5. Color palette
Colors have meanings, and meanings send out a message to your target audience. So choose your color palette carefully and wisely. Then explain in your brand style guide why you made that choice because the underlying reason is the message you want to disseminate in your communications.
Plus, a brand’s color palette affects the design of your website and every visual your team will create. But it also helps them set and maintain your brand’s visual consistency across channels.
6. Images
May your content contain photographs, illustrations, or both? And what about videos and animations? May your content contain any of those, too?
Make all that clear in your brand style guide because your imagery supports your messaging. And your team must know what those resources’ aesthetics must be, where to find them, and when to use them.
7. Fonts, logo, and tagline
Besides the words to use, your brand style guide must specify how those words look graphically. We’re talking about the fonts your team must use in different communication channels, whether online or offline.
And we’re talking about font colors, sizes, and letter spacing. Additionally, your font guidelines must tell your team members when to use bold and italics.
Finally, include your logo (and logo usage), its variations, and the visual look of your tagline in your brand guidelines. Make all of them visually appealing, easy to read, and accessible.
PRO TIP
Don’t forget to link to your brand guidelines from your creative briefs within your graphic design workflow!
Summarize this article for me pleaseBrand Guidelines Templates to Get You Started Right Now
Before discussing our selection of brand guideline examples, let’s look at a few brand guidelines templates that could speed up your process.
1. ClickUp Brand Guidelines (Docs) Template
This brand style guide template will give your brand guidelines the look of a printed document. It’s well-suited for the creation of a company’s first brand guidelines. And because it’s a beginner-level template, it contains plenty of instructions on how to fill it in and include all of your brand elements.
2. ClickUp Brand Guidelines Whiteboard Template
Choose this template if your team enjoys working with whiteboard-like documents. It’s visually attractive, and if your team members have a strong visual memory, they’ll recall your brand guidelines effortlessly.
Start by using brand guideline examples from your favorite organizations or include your own in this easy-to-use template.
3. ClickUp Branding Guideline Template
Use this template to organize your brand guidelines development project. It facilitates the management of tasks, the brand style guide document, other deliverables, and the project’s progress.
The template contains multiple project views, such as task list, calendar, schedule, and timeline. Alternate between them to define project stages and prioritization, schedules, and even assign tasks.
The template is also appropriate for developing branding projects for your clients. It allows you to keep them up-to-date with the project’s progress, plus request their approval of project deliverables.
Get started on your brand style guide with this helpful template!
Summarize this article for me pleaseStart Building an Inspirational Brand Today
You won’t regret investing time and money to develop strong, clear, well-organized brand guidelines. Take a closer look at the brand guidelines examples we shared with you.
And if you need help organizing or documenting your brand guidelines strategy, we’ve got you covered. Visit the ClickUp Template Center to try one of the hundreds of marketing templates you can use for free!
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