Brand guidelines
Brand guidelines exist so that work made by different people at different times looks like it came from one business. That is the entire purpose, and it is the test to apply to every rule you write: does this help someone else make something consistent without asking.
Most guidelines fail by being either a 60 page document nobody opens, or a logo and two hex codes that answer none of the questions people actually have.
What to capture
Eight sections. Small businesses need the first four; the rest matter once more than a few people are producing work.
- Logo the files, the clear space, the minimum size, what not to do
- Colour the palette with exact values, and what each colour is for
- Type the typefaces, the scale, and the fallbacks
- Voice how the business sounds, with examples
- Imagery photography and illustration direction
- Layout spacing, grid, how elements are arranged
- Components buttons, cards, forms, if there is a product
- Application how it looks on the specific things this business makes
references/capturing-an-existing-brand.md covers the common case: the brand already exists in practice but has never been written down.
A copy ready structure is at assets/brand-guide-template.md.
Rules for writing rules
Every rule needs a reason. “Do not stretch the logo” is obeyed. “Do not stretch the logo, it changes the letterforms and makes the business look careless” is understood, and understanding transfers to cases you did not anticipate.
Show, do not only tell. One correct example and one incorrect example beat a paragraph. The incorrect ones matter more, because they are the mistakes actually being made.
Be specific enough to check. “Use plenty of whitespace” cannot be checked. “Minimum 24px padding inside cards” can.
Cover what people actually do. The most used assets in a small business are an email signature, a quote document, an invoice, a social post and a van or shopfront. Guidelines that cover a billboard and not an email signature were written for the wrong business.
Say what is flexible. Rules with no give get broken silently in a corner and then drift. Marking a rule as a preference rather than a requirement is what keeps the requirements credible.
Colour, specifically
This is where most guidelines are too thin.
For every colour, give:
- HEX for digital
- RGB for digital tools that want it
- CMYK for print
- Pantone if anything is professionally printed
- A name people will actually use
And, more importantly, say what each colour is for:
Primary #0B6EE8 Buttons, links, the one thing to click
Ink #16161A Body text and headings
Muted #71717A Secondary text, captions, labels
Surface #F6F6F4 Card and section backgrounds
Line #E8E8E4 Borders and dividers
Success #16A34A Confirmations only
Danger #DC2626 Errors and destructive actions only
A palette without roles is a set of swatches, and swatches get used at random. The roles are what produce consistency.
Include accessible pairings: which text colours are safe on which backgrounds. This one table prevents most real world contrast failures.
Type, specifically
- The typefaces, with weights actually licensed
- Where they came from and what the licence permits. A guideline naming a font the business cannot legally use on its website is worse than useless
- A fallback stack for web
- A scale, with the sizes and line heights, not just “headings are large”
- What each level is for
If the brand uses a font that is not web safe and not licensed for web, say so explicitly and name the substitute. That decision will otherwise get made accidentally by whoever builds the next page.
Voice
The section most often skipped, and the one that shapes more output than the logo does.
Do not write adjectives. “Professional yet approachable” describes almost every business and guides nobody.
Write it as contrasts and examples:
We say Not
"We will call you Tuesday" "A representative will be in touch shortly"
"That will cost about $400" "Pricing is available on application"
"We got that wrong" "We apologise for any inconvenience caused"
Add three rules people can apply:
- Sentence case for headings, not Title Case
- Second person. You, not the customer
- No exclamation marks
Then include a real paragraph of on brand writing, and the same paragraph written badly. That comparison teaches more than a page of principles.
Keeping it usable
- One document, findable. Not five files in someone’s Drive
- Link the actual asset files. A guideline that describes the logo without linking it makes people search, and searching produces the wrong version
- Version and date it
- Name an owner. Somebody has to answer the edge cases
- Review annually
What not to do
- Do not invent brand history. Do not write a founding story or a set of values that has not been agreed. Capture what exists and mark gaps as gaps
- Do not over specify a brand that is still moving. Early stage businesses change. Write the parts that are settled
- Do not include rules nobody will follow. A rule broken constantly is not a rule, it is a description of a disagreement, and it undermines the rest of the document
Reference files
Everything the skill tells your AI to read, exactly as it ships in the zip.
references/capturing-an-existing-brand.md 3.5 KB
# Capturing a brand that already exists
The usual situation. The business has been trading for years, everything looks broadly consistent, and none of it is written down. You are not designing a brand, you are documenting one and quietly fixing the drift.
## Gather before deciding
Collect the last dozen things the business produced:
- The website
- A quote and an invoice
- An email signature
- Recent social posts
- Vehicle or shopfront signage
- Business cards, uniforms, anything printed
- Any Canva templates in use
Canva is worth asking about directly. In most small businesses it is where the real, current brand lives, whatever a designer specified three years ago.
## Extract, honestly
Pull the values as they actually are, not as they were specified.
**Colour.** Sample from the highest quality source available, ideally the original logo file rather than a screenshot. Expect four variants of the same blue. List them all before choosing, because the frequency tells you which one is real.
**Type.** Identify what is genuinely in use. Expect the website and the print material to disagree, and expect at least one to be a default nobody chose.
**Logo.** Find the best available files. Note what is missing: a vector version, a version for dark backgrounds, a square version for social avatars. Missing files are the most common practical gap and the easiest to fix.
**Voice.** Read the last twenty pieces of writing and note how the business actually sounds. Formal or plain, first person or third, whether it names prices.
## Name the drift
You will find inconsistencies. Present them as choices, not criticism:
> The blue appears as #1A73E8 on the website, #0B6EE8 in the logo file, and #2196F3 in the Canva templates. The logo file is the original. Standardise on #0B6EE8, or pick one of the others deliberately.
Three rules for this conversation:
- **Frequency is not correctness.** The most used version is often a copy of a copy
- **The original file wins** unless there is a reason to change
- **Do not fix everything.** Pick the differences that are visible to customers. Two shades of grey nobody will notice is not worth the conversation
## Fill the gaps that cost money
Beyond documenting, there are gaps worth flagging because they cause real problems:
- **No vector logo.** Means every print job is a compromise. Fix this first
- **No dark background version.** Means the logo appears in a white box on dark surfaces
- **No square version.** Means social avatars are cropped badly
- **Font not licensed for web.** A legal problem, not a design one
- **No accessible colour pairing.** The brand colour used for body text at 3:1 contrast
- **No spacing or size rules.** Means the logo appears at a different size on everything
## Get it agreed
One decision list, short, each item answerable in a word:
```
1. Primary blue: #0B6EE8 (logo original) or #1A73E8 (current website)?
2. Headline typeface: keep Montserrat, or move to the website font?
3. Do we commission a vector logo, roughly $200 to $400?
4. Sentence case or Title Case for headings?
```
Four decisions in five minutes beats a 40 page document sent for review and never opened.
## Write it as it is
Document the brand as agreed, mark unresolved items explicitly:
> **Unresolved.** The secondary colour is used inconsistently. It appears as an accent on the website and as a background in print. Pending a decision, use it as an accent only.
An honest gap is more useful than an invented rule. Someone will follow the invented rule and then discover it contradicts everything already printed.
assets/brand-guide-template.md 3.7 KB
# [Business name] brand guidelines
| | |
|---|---|
| **Version** | 1.0 |
| **Last updated** | [Date] |
| **Owner** | [Name] |
| **Questions** | [Email] |
---
## 1. Logo
**Files:** [Link to the folder]
| Variant | Use |
|---|---|
| Primary, full colour | Default, on light backgrounds |
| Reversed, white | On dark or photographic backgrounds |
| Mono, black | Single colour print, faxes, stamps |
| Icon only | Social avatars, favicons, app icons, anywhere under 60px |
**Clear space:** minimum [X] on all sides, equal to [the height of the letter X in the wordmark].
**Minimum size:** [X]px on screen, [X]mm in print.
**Do not:**
- Stretch or squash. It changes the letterforms and reads as careless
- Recolour outside the variants above
- Add effects: shadows, outlines, gradients
- Place on a busy background without the reversed version
- Rebuild it. Use the supplied files
---
## 2. Colour
| Role | Name | HEX | RGB | CMYK | Pantone |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primary | [Name] | #______ | | | |
| Ink, body text | [Name] | #______ | | | |
| Muted, secondary | [Name] | #______ | | | |
| Surface | [Name] | #______ | | | |
| Line | [Name] | #______ | | | |
| Accent | [Name] | #______ | | | |
**What each is for**
- **Primary:** the one thing to click. Buttons and links. Not backgrounds
- **Ink:** all body text and headings
- **Muted:** captions, labels, secondary information
- **Surface:** card and section backgrounds
- **Accent:** [where, specifically]
**Accessible pairings**
| Text | On | Ratio | Safe for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ink | Surface | __:1 | All text |
| White | Primary | __:1 | [Large text only / all text] |
Anything under 4.5:1 is not for body text, whatever it looks like on your monitor.
---
## 3. Typography
| Level | Typeface | Weight | Size | Line height | Use |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Display | | | | | Hero headlines |
| H1 | | | | | Page titles |
| H2 | | | | | Section headings |
| H3 | | | | | Subsections |
| Body | | | | | Paragraphs |
| Small | | | | | Captions, labels |
**Web fallback stack:** `[Font], -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", sans-serif`
**Licence:** [Where the font came from, and what the licence permits. Web use, print, embedding in documents.]
**If the brand font is unavailable:** use [substitute]. Do not substitute at random.
---
## 4. Voice
**We sound:** [three specific things, not adjectives]
**We say / not**
| We say | Not |
|---|---|
| | |
| | |
| | |
**Rules**
- [Sentence case for headings]
- [Second person. You, not the customer]
- [No exclamation marks]
- [Prices stated plainly, not on application]
**On brand example**
> [A real paragraph]
**Off brand, same content**
> [The same paragraph written the wrong way]
---
## 5. Imagery
**Photography:** [Style, subject, treatment. Real jobs and real people, or stock. Warm or neutral. What to avoid.]
**Illustration:** [Style, or "we do not use illustration".]
**Do not:** [Specific things that keep happening.]
---
## 6. Layout
- **Spacing unit:** [8px]. All spacing is a multiple
- **Corner radius:** [X]px, consistently
- **Grid:** [12 column, X gutter]
- **Maximum content width:** [X]px
- **Line length for body text:** 60 to 75 characters
---
## 7. Application
The things this business actually produces. Fill only the rows that apply.
| Asset | Notes | Template |
|---|---|---|
| Email signature | | [Link] |
| Quote document | | [Link] |
| Invoice | | [Link] |
| Social post | | [Link] |
| Vehicle or signage | | [Link] |
| Uniform | | |
| Slide deck | | [Link] |
---
## 8. Unresolved
Things not yet decided. Do not invent an answer, ask the owner.
- [ ] [Open question]
- [ ] [Open question]
---
## Revision history
| Version | Date | Changed by | What changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | [Date] | [Name] | First version |
