What should be in our brand guidelines?

A brand guide should not be a museum. It should be a working agreement that helps people make things.

The short answer

Everything someone needs to make a real thing without the original designers in the room: the strategy behind the brand, the voice, the logo, colour and type rules, layout principles, worked examples, and the actual files.

If the guide only looks impressive as a PDF, it has missed the job. The test is whether a new supplier, a new hire or your own team can produce something on-brand from it, unassisted.

Useful guidelines connect strategy, voice, visual identity and day-to-day production. The guide should help people make things, not just admire the launch work.

The longer answer

Start with the reason, not the rules

Rules are easier to follow when people understand why they exist. A useful guide starts with the strategic foundation: what the brand is trying to be known for, who it speaks to, what it should sound like, and what kind of behaviour would weaken it. Without that, the guide becomes a police document. People follow it mechanically, or avoid it entirely.

How the guide gets made

A strong guideline process moves through six stages: define the brand, build the identity system, test it on real touchpoints, document the rules, show examples, and hand over the assets. A brand that only works on a hero slide is not finished. It needs to survive a website header, a LinkedIn post, a sales deck, signage and a dull internal form.

That sequence lines up with our own QC Process. The guide should not appear at the end as admin. It grows out of the work.

What should be included

The exact contents depend on the organisation, but a practical guide usually covers:

Brand idea, positioning and audience notes.
Voice and tone, with phrases that feel right and phrases to avoid.
Logo system: lockups, clear space, minimum sizes, misuse examples.
Colour palette with HEX, RGB, CMYK and Pantone values where needed.
Typography rules for print, web and office documents.
Photography, illustration and icon direction.
Layout principles for social, web, print and presentations.
Accessibility basics, including contrast and legibility.
Templates for the assets the team actually makes.
File guidance, so people know which logo or export to use.

That last point is the one most guides skip. A good guide does not just say "use the primary logo". It helps someone choose between the primary logo, reversed logo, mono mark, SVG, PNG and print file without asking the designer every time.

Keep the guide close to use

Guidelines fail when they are too precious. If the only copy lives in a beautiful PDF nobody opens, the everyday touchpoints start to wander: pitch decks, email headers, forms, recruitment posts. Those are not minor details; they are where people actually experience the brand. We have written about this in Brands are built in the touchpoints nobody calls brand.

A brand should not need the original creative team in the room every time someone makes a new asset. If it does, the system is too fragile.

Leave room for judgement

Consistency does not mean making every asset identical. A safety notice, a premium proposal and an event poster should feel related, not cloned. Good guidelines define what must stay strict (logo integrity), what can tier (colour), and what can flex (tone by audience, layout by format). The point is not control for its own sake. It is giving the organisation confidence to make more things well.

Part of Q+A, our plain-English client desk. Updated 3 July 2026.