Designing with Brand Guidelines

Wouldn't it be nice to work with any font or color of your choosing! The world of a Graphic designer would be so much easier rather than happier. Woefully, it's not the case with an established brand guideline to follow, and you have to stick within the frames. It's challenging yet fun to work with a set of rules, and we think there's an art in following the guidelines.

How to work with existing brand guidelines? No one talks about this, but it's the most critical thing you can do when starting a new project. Having a consistent design approach across brand assets is what separates great design from good design. So let's talk about it!

These days brands want to redesign their website, look and feel of marketing materials to keep up with trends while sticking to their Brand Identity. A graphic designer has to be able to play along and make it look modern yet sticking to the essence, so it should look from the same company. A best practice is documenting all brand assets in a brand guidelines document and socializing that document across the company and external service providers. That way, everyone knows the rules, has the assets they need while adding to the libraries as there could be constant variations.

It might be easier to follow guidelines but keeping the identity intact to give the creatives or the website a new look? It could be a pretty challenging task. What happens if a brand loses its consistency? Customers lose their trust. It confuses them, and they have a more challenging time recognizing the Brand. Trust is everything in Branding.

If you're unsure or like your design is not up to par with the guidelines, take a step back and reflect on what's working. Do you need more inspiration for how these branding elements can look in different contexts? We know it sounds scary - but trust us when we say, following brand standards doesn't have to feel limiting at all! Remember that they are just suggestions of how things should be done - don't let them dictate too much about what decisions you make while designing. With our help, this process will become more accessible than ever before. Contact us today if you want some guidance!

There are few proven ways to manage a brand while keeping the new trends in mind:

Logo- Figuring out ways to present logo:

• Including more air-space around it to make it look cleaner.
• Avoid using cropped, low-res, skewed logos.
• Can the logo be set on new backgrounds?
• Can the logo be shorter and only an icon rather than having a name beside it?

Color palette: Figuring out Brand's colors- Primary and Secondary Color palette:

• Distinguishing between Primary and Secondary colors.
• Color treatment to be similar for campaigning across mediums - digital & print
• Color consistency across all brand touchpoints.

Typography: Figuring out ways to use Brand's Fonts- Primary and Secondary Font:

• Usually, there would be 2-3 sets of fonts given in the Guideline. Look for font combinations that work best together.
• Finalize consistent font styles and combinations across mediums - digital & print
• Defining typesets and font scales prior can save you tons of work time.

Layout: Figuring out ways to use Brand's assets- Presenting elements in a new way

• Fixing templates for communication types; across mediums - digital & print.
• Be conscious that layout and graphic design complements the copy and messaging. This structuring helps the audience comprehend the visuals better.
• The most important thing to remember is that brand guidelines do not mean to restrict you; but instead, they're a small platform on which you can build your design. With the right amount of creativity and knowledge about how brands work, any designer can produce designs that accurately resonate with customers with the company and their creative process.

If designing brand assets with consistency sounds like something you want help doing or have questions along these lines, please contact us!

We love working with brands who take pride in what they do - give us a call today for more information about our services.