Branding is more than just a logo; it’s an entire experience that creates an emotional response from your customers. The right message is critical! Brand guidelines are a set of rules which outline the correct way to use your logo, colour scheme and typography. Branded product designs have the power to build a strong brand identity, and brand strategy and attract new customers.
However, without creating a set of guidelines for how your brand should be applied, you run the risk of producing inconsistent designs that do not represent your business in the best way possible. A strong and consistent brand identity helps clarify what your business stands for, allowing you to communicate your purpose, personality and promises. Here are some elements that should be in your brand guidelines:
Brand Identity
A brand identity is what your company looks like as a whole, and includes everything from your logo to your colours. In the minds of consumers, a brand is identified and distinguished by its visual components, such as colour, design, and logo. Brand image and brand identity are different.
Brand Purpose
A brand’s purpose is the “why” of a company or the things it stands for, which can be found in its brand mission. This “why” typically has to do with the target audience and the clients or businesses the company serves.
Brand purpose offers consumers who wish to make purchasing decisions that support a way of life an option by being political, ethical, or moral. The founders’ lives and experiences, their view of a market gap, or the need for change and disruption within a market sector may all be reflected in a brand’s purpose. Or it could be results-oriented, such as rewriting the rulebook to get around restrictions and reach the highest standards.
Brand Core Values
Brand core values are the foundation upon which all other elements of your brand building. They represent what makes you different from your competitors, and they can help customers understand why they should choose your product or service over another.
Strong core values benefit brands in a variety of ways, particularly when it comes to fostering relationships with both customers and staff. Before getting into the advantages, it’s crucial to realise that building brand values entails much more than just offering top-notch goods and services.
Brand Prism
The brand identity prism is a helpful example of how your brand’s identity (how you want to be viewed) and your brand’s image intersect (how your brand is actually perceived).
Brand Essence
Brand essence is what makes your company unique from other brands. It serves as the foundation for the brand’s appearance of consistency and authenticity. It establishes the core values of a brand, creates the overall identity, and seeks to evoke a specific idea, sentiment, or emotion in customers.
Logo
When you’re working with a designer on the logo for your brand, you want to make sure that the final product is something that you are proud of. Logos are made up of images, texts, and shapes that depict the name and purpose of a business. Sometimes a tagline would be included too!
Clear space
Your logo should be able to stand alone as a piece of art, but it also needs to work alongside other visual elements within your brand. The clear space in the CR8 logo enhances visibility, creating impact and bringing attention to the CR8 brand identity. The clear space in the CR8 logo is intentionally designed to be 1.5X. This intensifies focus around simplicity, which is an essence of the brand identity itself. Whenever using the logo as part of the visual, key focus areas of visuals may be placed within this clear space while allowing proportional room to maintain the visibility of the logo.
Typeface
Each typeface makes its own distinct statement. All visual communication for CR8 will be set with Aileron typeface, in different weights: Regular, Semibold, and Bold. The typeface has bold and simplistic characteristics that affirm the emotional bond we wish to create with our audiences. CR8 text carries the simple confidence of its brand personality.
The secondary typeface is Arial, with two weights; Regular and Bold. The regular weight is for the body copy. The bold weight is used for emphasis in a sentence or as a Title Display. Use Arial only when Aileron is unavailable due to unforeseen circumstances or caused by compatibility issues. Otherwise, Aileron should be applied across media as the only font to represent CR8.
Brand Visual
These are the iconography collection of CR8. The brackets are used consistently as part of CR8’s integral identity.
Brand Graphics
Brand graphics are the extension of a brand. The brand graphics represent the brand in a creative and dynamic application. For CR8 it is the brackets derived from our very own logo. The brackets can contain objects, words or elements to create additional depth to the whole expression or message. The brackets give simplicity and uniqueness to CR8’s brand.
Benefits of Brand Guideline
But why do you need brand guidelines? Here are four reasons why they’re so important:
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It helps create a strong brand identity
Strong and consistent branding helps clarify what your business stands for, allowing your business to communicate your purpose, your personality, and your promises. This will help people to recognise and remember your products as well as identify with them more easily.
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It helps maintain a brand image of professionalism
Be Consistent in your product Branding and create an international Brand Identity with a cohesive look & feel. This can be achieved by using our design studio which allows you to see examples from our portfolio and pick one that best fits the needs of your business!
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It enhances your brand recognition
Brand guidelines help create a cohesive look & feel for all aspects of your business, from the look of your website and social media profiles to the way you answer customer service emails or ship products out to customers.
Conclusion
Many people think this isn’t important for small businesses. The reality is that even SMEs need a degree of consistency in their branding in order to be taken seriously by customers. The more consistent you are with your branding across all these different touch points, the stronger your brand will become and the easier it will be for people to recognise who you are and what you do at first glance! Without having a visual representation of your brand, employees have little guidance on how to implement your brand across all communications platforms. Branding matters!
Let us assist you in elevating your brand!
At CR8 Consultancy, we offer full branding services that will help you create a unique identity, brand and marketing communications. Request a free consultation with us today and start growing your brand!