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Whether you’re a scrappy startup trying to look more polished, or an established brand managing multiple teams, having a solid brand guideline ensures that your message, visual and verbal remains sharp, recognisable, and unified. It’s not just about logos or fonts. It’s about creating a roadmap for how your brand shows up in the world, across every platform and medium.
At Together, we believe branding should be as easy to follow as it is beautiful. This guide breaks down the basics and best practices of brand guidelines with real-world examples to inspire your own.
Brand guidelines, also known as a brand style guide, are a collection of standards that define the visual and verbal identity of a brand. They serve as a reference manual for internal teams and external partners like designers, writers, marketers, and anyone else who communicates on behalf of your business.
They ensure consistency across all brand touchpoints. Whether it's a business card, social media ad, website banner, or investor presentation, brand guidelines help you look, sound, and feel the same every single time. These guidelines typically include rules about logo usage, typography, colour palette, tone of voice, image style, and even brand values or mission. Together, they form the foundation for a brand that’s not only attractive but also coherent and credible. A great example of this can be seen in the Busy Bees brand guidelines.
In 2025, your audience interacts with your brand across dozens of platforms: Instagram, LinkedIn, email newsletters, podcasts, packaging, and even WhatsApp. Without consistency, you’re not building a brand, you’re creating confusion. That’s why having a defined set of brand guidelines is more than just “good practice”, it’s essential.
Brand guidelines allow everyone on your team (and outside of it) to present your brand in a unified way. They help build trust with your audience, increase brand recall, and speed up workflows. And when your visual and verbal identity stays consistent over time, your brand starts to feel more familiar, credible, and professional which makes people more likely to choose you. To understand the deeper value of brand identity, read here .
Your brand story is the emotional backbone of your identity. This section should communicate the "why" behind your brand, why it exists, what it stands for, and what kind of future it’s trying to build. A clear mission, vision, and set of values ground all visual and verbal elements with meaning. It gives context to your colours, tone, and design decisions. When your team understands the deeper purpose, they’re more likely to stay aligned and inspired.
Logos are often the first impression people get of your brand and that impression should be protected. Include clear instructions on how your logo should be used, from minimum sizing and placement to spacing rules and background contrast. It's just as important to showcase incorrect usage as it is to show the correct way, so there's no ambiguity. Whether your logo appears on a billboard or a mobile screen, the guidelines should ensure it remains legible, professional, and consistent.
Your colour palette is more than a design choice, it's an emotional cue. This section should list all primary and secondary brand colours with their corresponding HEX, RGB, and CMYK values to make it easy for designers to replicate them accurately. You can also include usage recommendations, like when to use certain colours for calls-to-action versus background elements. The goal is to create harmony and visual consistency across every brand touchpoint.
Typography communicates tone even before a word is read. Define your brand’s typefaces clearly, distinguishing between those used for headings, body copy, captions, and buttons. Explain hierarchy, spacing, and how to use different weights (bold, regular, light) for emphasis. A strong typographic system not only elevates the brand aesthetic but also improves readability and user experience across print and digital formats.
Your brand voice is how you sound, and your tone is how you feel. Are you friendly and casual, or professional and authoritative? This section should describe your voice characteristics in detail and provide examples of how to write in your tone across different platforms, social media, customer support, product descriptions, and more. Consistency here builds trust, makes your communication feel familiar, and helps avoid off-brand messaging.
Images shape how your brand feels. Include direction on the kinds of photography or illustrations that align with your brand. Should photos be candid or staged? Warm or cool-toned? Diverse and inclusive? Should illustrations be flat, isometric, or hand-drawn? Provide visual examples, dos and don’ts, and explain the rationale behind the chosen style to maintain visual integrity across all media.
This is where your guidelines come to life. Show examples of how your brand elements work together in real scenarios: business cards, packaging, social media posts, pitch decks, product pages. Real-world applications make it easier for others to understand how to apply the rules and replicate them with confidence.
Sometimes the best way to understand how guidelines work is to see them in action. Here are a few brands that have done it right:
Spotify’s guidelines focus on clarity, simplicity and accessibility, values that align perfectly with their product experience. Their guide shows how they handle color contrast, typography in motion, and inclusive design across all user touchpoints.
Dropbox uses its guidelines to tell a story that’s playful, expressive, and friendly, much like the tone of their product. Their visual identity system is flexible yet rooted in principles that allow for creativity without chaos.
NASA’s “Graphics Standards Manual” is one of the most well-known design guides out there. It’s clean, clear, and built to last, just like NASA itself. It also proves that even large organisations, including government agencies, need strong branding rules to stay consistent.
Creating effective brand guidelines isn’t about being rigid, it’s about being clear. Start by making your guidelines accessible and easy to understand for everyone, not just designers. Use simple language and break down complex ideas with visuals, diagrams, or real-world examples.
Make sure your guide explains the "why" behind each rule. When people understand the reasoning, they’re more likely to follow the rules with intention rather than obligation. Also, keep your guide flexible enough to allow for creativity while still maintaining control.
Importantly, don’t let your brand guide gather digital dust. Revisit and update it regularly as your brand evolves. And make it easy to access whether that’s through an internal portal, shared drive, or brand hub. The more frictionless it is to use, the more likely it’ll be followed.
Brand guidelines are your brand’s foundation, the manual that ensures every visual, every sentence, and every asset consistently reflects who you are. They’re not just for designers or agencies. They’re for marketers, product teams, customer support reps, and anyone shaping the brand experience.
When done right, brand guidelines are more than rules, they’re the tools that empower creativity, protect your identity, and keep your brand’s voice clear and strong no matter how big you grow.
At Together, we help brands build style guides that scale without losing style.
Ready to give your brand the consistency it deserves? Let’s build guidelines that don’t just sit in a PDF, but actually work.
