21 Brand Style Guide Examples for Visual Inspiration

Creating a constant model begins with making a model fashion information. These branding rule books assist graphic designers, entrepreneurs, internet builders, neighborhood managers, and even product packaging departments all keep on the identical web page, and current a unified imaginative and prescient of the model to the general public.

The most effective manufacturers stick in our brains as a result of their presence is outlined by the repetition of the identical emblem, fonts, colours, and pictures. As soon as we see them sufficient, they turn into immediately recognizable, bringing us a transparent sense of reliability and safety. All of that is potential when every member of your crew adheres to a cohesive model fashion information.

On this article, we’ll go over what model tips are, the weather of a mode information, and a few wonderful examples of them in motion to make use of as inspiration on your subsequent branding mission or web site redesign.

Image essentially the most recognizable manufacturers you’ll be able to consider. Likelihood is, you’ve got discovered to acknowledge them due to the consistency throughout the messaging — written or visible — these manufacturers broadcast. The identical model colours are mirrored throughout them. The language sounds acquainted. It is all very organized and, whereas not inflexible, it is cohesive.

Even if you happen to work at a small firm, you can even create a model fashion information that takes your organization’s visible identification to the following degree. However earlier than you sit all the way down to create your branding tips, it’s important to take a step again and outline your model’s mission assertion and purchaser personas.

These strategic parts will aid you dive into the tactical parts of your model fashion information later.

Model Tips Mission Assertion

Your mission statement is an action-oriented assertion declaring your group’s goal, making it the compass of your model fashion information. It ensures that every one your content material is working towards the identical purpose and connecting together with your viewers. This assertion can information your weblog and paid content material, advert copy, visible media, and slogan.

You possibly can both embrace your mission assertion inside your fashion information, create a separate doc which you can reference throughout the creation course of, or distill your mission assertion right into a slogan which you can place on the head of your doc.

Model Tips Purchaser Persona

A buyer persona is a fictional illustration of your superb buyer. It contains particulars in your buyer’s job title, age, gender, {and professional} challenges — due to this fact stipulating for whom your model publishes content material.

Your purchaser persona guides your weblog content material, advert copy, and visible media, which might appeal to beneficial leads and clients to your enterprise.

Obtain our free useful resource on how one can create your individual fashion information with model tips templates to observe. Making a constant fashion information is not straightforward, however with these instruments you’ll be able to construct an unforgettable one with ease.

Subsequent, we’ll go over a number of parts you’d discover in a model fashion information and which elements of a model they will affect.

Obtain our free useful resource on how one can create your individual fashion information with model tips templates to observe. Making a constant fashion information is not straightforward, however with these instruments you’ll be able to construct an unforgettable one with ease.

The Parts of a Model Type Information

A model fashion information encompasses far more than only a emblem (though that’s essential, too). It visually encompasses all the pieces your model is about — all the way down to your enterprise’ goal. Listed below are some key parts that make or break a model fashion information.

Emblem

Your logo may seem to be the only facet of your branding tips, however in actuality, it’s one of the vital advanced and most essential elements.

In your information, it is best to embrace a visible of your emblem, clarify its design particulars, and describe how it may be utilized by exterior and inside publishers (with or with out your model image, for example, or with sure spacing necessities).

You must also embrace incorrect usages — i.e, you may advise towards rotating the design or curving the font. That approach, whether or not you or another person is publishing details about your organization, your emblem seems to be constant in all places.

In case your model is well-known and many retailers publish details about you, you may wish to present a complete doc outlining acceptable use insurance policies on your emblem.

Colour Palette

The color palette might be one of the vital distinctive and recognizable elements of an organization’s branding tips. It’s the group of colours your organization makes use of to design its brand assets, guiding each piece of visible content material created. These shade mixtures typically observe HEX or RGB shade codes, and govern your emblem, internet design, printed adverts, and occasion collateral.

A brand color palette shouldn’t solely embrace your major shade, but in addition all kinds of secondary, tertiary, and impartial colours. This can permit you to give you extra dynamic and diversified designs within the content material creation stage. In case you don’t outline an array of choices, you’ll be able to run the chance of getting your crew create content material with random secondary colours, which might look inconsistent.

Typography

Typography is a visible ingredient of your model fashion information that goes past the font you utilize in your organization emblem. It helps your model’s design all the way down to the hyperlinks and replica in your web site — even your tagline. We suggest specifying a major and secondary font, with a mix of serifs and font weights for various use instances.

Keep in mind, the purpose of your branding tips is to empower your folks and exterior stakeholders to create constant however diversified collateral on behalf of your model. You don’t wish to restrict them with a single font possibility.

As an illustration, HubSpot’s major font is Lexend Deca (sans-serif), whereas our secondary font is Queens (serif). They’re each built-in in our very personal Content Hub, and our design device, Canva, the place we are able to use all kinds of font weights to create belongings.

Don’t overlook: Typography performs a significant function in your web site’s person expertise, so that you wish to be certain that it’s visually interesting whereas additionally being accessible and simple to learn.

Imagery and Iconography

You could possibly solely embrace your emblem, colours, and fonts in your tips, however if you happen to’d wish to create a stronger fashion information, contemplate together with permitted imagery, pre-designed icons, and customized symbols on your firm to make use of throughout your web site and print collateral.

In case your price range is smaller, you’ll be able to suggest photographic types (i.e candid versus staged, etcetera), after which direct content material creators to your most popular inventory picture supplier (i.e. Shutterstock, Unsplash). Alternatively, you’ll be able to fee an organization photoshoot at a studio and make the ensuing images out there for inventive use.

Symbols and icons can be an awesome addition to your branding tips. As with photographs, you’ll be able to all the time discover free icons on-line and suggest what to make use of versus what to not use — for example, you may desire to make use of define icons solely, and never full-color. You can too fee customized icons from a contract graphic designer.

Model Voice

If your organization visuals are the flesh and bones of your fashion information, your brand voice is the beating coronary heart.

The significance of your model voice can’t be overstated. Whether or not you need your organization’s persona to be pleasant and informal, or distant and formal, you wish to make it straightforward for entrepreneurs, salespeople, and content material creators in your crew to know how one can characterize your model on-line. This can guarantee constant messaging throughout all channels.

You can too embrace a full editorial fashion information. The job of an editorial style guide is to commit an editorial stylebook on how one can phrase sure merchandise, record subjects the model can and can’t write about, and different firms it might point out. Your editorial fashion information can information your weblog content material, video scripts, web site and touchdown web page copy, PR speaking factors, and data base articles.

As you’ll be able to see, the aim of the model fashion information is to kind and preserve all the varied parts of an organization that, when mixed, spell out the complete model because it’s acknowledged.

Intrigued? Try 21 of the most effective ones we might discover.

1. Medium

Medium easy model fashion information emphasizes utilization of its emblem, wordmark, and image. Medium’s emblem is the model’s major graphic ingredient and was created to really feel “assured, premium, timeless, and fashionable.”

See the complete model information here.

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2. Walmart

Walmart is among the world’s largest and most recognizable manufacturers, so it is no shock that its model information is extraordinarily thorough.

The information contains the model’s emblem, images, typography, illustrations, iconography, voice, editorial fashion, and extra. Walmart’s shade palette is so integral to its model identification that its major shade known as “Walmart Blue.”

See the complete model information here.

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3. Asana

Asana’s easy fashion information highlights its emblem and shade palette. It additionally explains how one can correctly use the model’s belongings.

See the complete model information here.

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4. Skype

Everybody’s favourite video chat platform additionally has a squeaky-clean fashion information for its model. Skype, now owned by Microsoft, focuses totally on its product phrasing and emblem placement.

See the complete model information here.

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5. Barre & Soul

Barre & Soul’s model fashion information contains variations of its emblem, emblem spacing, secondary logos, supporting imagery, and a five-color shade palette.

See the complete model information here.

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6. Spotify

Spotify’s fashion information may seem easy and inexperienced, however there’s extra to the model than only a lime inexperienced circle. Spotify’s shade palette contains three shade codes, whereas the remainder of the corporate’s branding tips focus closely on emblem variation and album art work.

The fashion information even permits you to obtain an icon model of its emblem, making it simpler to characterize the corporate with out manually recreating it.

See the complete model information here.

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7. Starbucks

Starbucks’ interactive model fashion information contains particulars about how one can use its core parts similar to the long-lasting Siren emblem and inexperienced shade palette.

Plus, the information contains a visible spectrum of how their inventive belongings can be utilized throughout completely different channels in addition to case research of various seasonal campaigns and product launches.

See the complete model information here.

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8. Paris 2024

Paris 2024’s model identification pays homage to the 1924 Olympic Video games by Artwork Deco impressed design. The long-lasting emblem, shade scheme, typeface, and iconography are all detailed in its model information. Better of all, designers utilized eco-branding strategies to Paris 2024’s model supplies to scale back the quantity of ink and paper wanted for bodily supplies in addition to restrict the ability and information consumption on digital parts.

See the complete model information here.

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9. City Outfitters

Images, shade, and even tone of voice seem in City Outfitters’ California-inspired model tips. Nevertheless, the corporate is not shy to incorporate details about its superb shopper and what the model believes in, as nicely.

See the complete model information here.

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10. Like to Experience

Like to Experience, a biking firm, is all about shade selection in its visually pleasing fashion information. The corporate’s model tips embrace 9 shade codes and tons of element about its secondary logos and imagery.

See the complete model information here.

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11. Barbican

Barbican, an artwork and studying middle in the UK, sports activities a loud but easy fashion information focusing closely on its emblem and supporting typefaces.

See the complete model information here.

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12. I Love New York

Regardless of its famously easy t-shirts, I Love New York has a model fashion information. The corporate begins its tips with a radical rationalization of its mission, imaginative and prescient, story, audience, and tone of voice. Solely then does the fashion information delve into its emblem positioning on varied merchandise.

See the complete model information here.

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13. TikTok

TikTok’s fashion information is not only a information — it is an interactive model guide. First, it supplies an in-depth look into the way it brings its model to life by design. Then, it offers an outline of its emblem, co-branding, shade, and typography. At its core, TikTok is a model that “celebrates the relentless vitality, creativity, and expression of [its] customers.”

See the complete model information here.

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14. College of the Arts Helsinki

The fashion information of the College of the Arts Helsinki is extra of a inventive branding album than a standard advertising and marketing information. It reveals you dozens of contexts through which you’d see this faculty’s provocative emblem, together with animations.

See the complete model information here.

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15. Ivy Lane Occasions

Ivy Lane Occasions’ daring fashion information is reflective of the edgy occasions the corporate produces. In it, you may discover a temper board with darkish, romantic visuals impressed by “victorian gothic fashion and classic guide artwork.” The information additionally particulars the correct utilization design parts such because the wordmark, major icon, secondary logos, shade, and typography.

See the complete model information here.

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16. Western Athletic Convention

The Western Athletic Convention’s model fashion information contains in depth details about its historical past, mission, and imaginative and prescient. It additionally highlights its member universities and athletic championships and awards it’s concerned with. The model parts embrace emblem, colours, slogan, patch, and extra.

See the complete model information here.

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17. Discord

Discord’s model information is as colourful and playful because the communities it serves. The model’s movement parts are based mostly on the dot, which represents the Discord person interacting with others within the communities it belongs to. The information describes utilization of Discord’s typography, colours, and icon (lovingly named Clyde).

See the complete model information here.

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18. Netflix

So far as its public model belongings are involved, Netflix is targeted totally on the remedy of its emblem. The corporate presents a easy algorithm governing the dimensions, spacing, and placement of its well-known capitalized typeface, in addition to a single shade code for its traditional crimson emblem.

See the complete model information here.

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19. Scrimshaw Espresso

That includes a six-code shade palette, this “laid again,” “cool,” and “eclectic” model has quite a lot of secondary logos it embraces in varied conditions.

See the complete model information here.

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20. NASA

NASA’s “Graphics Requirements Guide” is as official and complicated as you suppose it’s. At 220 pages, the information describes numerous emblem placements, shade makes use of, and supporting designs. And sure, NASA’s house shuttles have their very own branding guidelines.

See the complete model information here.

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21. New York Metropolis Transit Authority

Like NASA, the NYCTA has its personal Graphics Requirements Guide, and it contains some fascinating typography guidelines for the numbers, arrows, and public transit symbols the common commuter takes as a right day-after-day.

See the complete model information here.

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Branding Tips Suggestions

If you wish to take your branding fashion information to the following degree, I like to recommend following these greatest practices, which the HubSpot Artistic crew has used to disseminate branding info to the remainder of the HubSpot Advertising and marketing crew.

This has not solely made my job as a blogger simpler, but in addition makes our branding really feel nicely thought-out and cohesive.

1. Make your tips a branded doc.

Whether or not you’re publishing your branding tips on-line or creating an inside presentation, contemplate making the rules themselves a branded doc. Make sure the printed doc follows your established model voice, makes use of the symbols and imagery you’ve created, and employs the colours and typography that makes your model really feel such as you.

When our Artistic crew rolled out a visible identification refresh for the HubSpot model, all of us obtained entry to a branded playbook that summarized all of the adjustments and described how we should always characterize HubSpot on-line shifting ahead. Not solely was I an enormous fan of the refresh, but in addition of the best way it was offered to our crew in a branded doc.

You are able to do the identical, no matter your price range. Our Artistic crew truly used a free device, Google Slides — so it’s completely doable for a small or freelance model!

2. Identify your model’s colours.

You’ve already chosen your shade palette — why go so far as naming the colours? Giving your colours distinctive names (apart from “blue” or “orange”) might help you tie the tactical parts of your branding into an total theme or ethos.

To not point out that it’s superior to have the ability to confer with firm colours by a novel title. Think about if we referred to as Solaris, HubSpot’s major model shade, “HubSpot Orange” — that merely doesn’t have the identical ring.

In our visible identification refresh, our Artistic crew brightened and intensified our shade palette, then renamed the person hues. They wrote, “Each shade, tint, and shade is predicated on central themes. […] Whether or not it’s a subway line in Paris, or a flower-lined avenue in Japan, the secondary shade names are a veritable tour of essential cultural and geographical touchstones from HubSpotters all around the world.”

Take into consideration what makes your model distinctive, and why you selected the colours that you just did. As an illustration, if you happen to work at a legislation agency that focuses on automobile accident instances, you may select crimson as one of many model colours and name it “Cease Gentle.”

3. Create easy-to-use branded templates.

Alongside your branding tips ought to be templates to empower your crew to simply design branded belongings, even when they’re not designers. At HubSpot, we preserve all of our templates in our crew’s Canva account. There, anybody (myself included) can edit pre-made designs for any variety of use instances.

As a author on the HubSpot weblog, I’ve to create graphics to complement the data I’m sharing. The branded templates made by our Artistic crew have made my work an awesome deal simpler — and I can think about that it’s the identical for our Social Media crew, when they should publish an replace on any one in all HubSpot’s social media profiles.

Whether or not you run a small or massive enterprise, you’ll be able to profit from creating a minimum of one template that could possibly be adjusted to completely different sizes. Not everyone seems to be a designer, however with templates, you’ll be able to guarantee your model seems to be skilled irrespective of who creates an asset.

4. Guarantee your branding is optimized for all channels.

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Your branding tips ought to embrace completely different specs for various channels — or, alternatively, it is best to have belongings and designs that may be adjusted for varied channels and mediums. Not just for sizing functions, however for accessibility functions, too.

As an illustration, if you happen to primarily market your model over Instagram and in your web site, then your branding ought to have internet accessible colours, in addition to Instagram-friendly designs and sizes. On Instagram, you may wish to keep away from small, gentle typography, and so your font ought to work nicely for that channel, too.

You don’t wish to considerably change your branding from channel to channel; it ought to work comparatively nicely irrespective of the place you’re advertising and marketing your model.

Construct a Memorable Type Information of Your Personal

When you construct your distinctive model fashion information, clients will acknowledge your model and affiliate it with all of the visible cues you need them to. We hope you have been impressed by our record of wonderful model fashion guides and want you luck in making a timeless fashion of your individual.

Editor’s word: This submit was initially printed in January 2017 and has been up to date for comprehensiveness.