Branding Guidelines help unify your brand, by Renée DeLuca Dolan

Regardless of what you call them, brand guidelines are a tool designed to give your brand consistency and flexibility. Yes, they are often used by designers to ensure they’re using the right fonts, color palette, and versions of your logo. But effective guidelines should be much more than that. Most companies use brand guidelines as a resource all employeescan reference to  represent the company’s brand accurately. This includes brand elements like your logo<https://elementthree.com/blog/why-your-logo-matters-and-what-you-need-to-consider/, color palette, photography, illustrations and icons, and typefaces.

From your sales, marketing, and customer service teams, who use your elevator pitch every day, to the finance director who’s at a networking event and gets asked what the company does, everyone should have more than a cursory understanding of what genuinely makes your organization unique.

When it comes to building your brand or if you’re going for a brand refresh, we’ve put together some guidelines for your new or refreshed branding and style guides. We’ve compiled a list of brand style guide options you can use as a checklist for your next branding project or website redesign. Check them out below.

Basic Standards Package:
* Logo
* Fonts
* Colors
* Dos and Don’ts

Extended Standards:
* Primary and Secondary color palettes
* Logo dos and don’ts
* Typography
* Imagery and Usage

Identity Package:
* Logo Development or Logo Refresh
* Business Cards, Letterhead, #10 Envelopes
* Mailing labels and thank-you cards
* Pocket Folder
* Word template of Approved Letterhead

Website Design or Redesign – this cannot be left off the list when implementing your brand and identity standards.
These branding rule books help graphic designers, marketers, web developers, community managers, and even product packaging departments all stay on the same page, and present a unified vision of the brand to the public. Good luck on your next branding project, and please take a look at our website for other brand samples and identity packages. www.contempocleveland.com

Renée DeLuca Dolan | President/Founder
26650 Renaissance Parkway/D-4
Cleveland, Ohio 44128
216.831.9557 office ext. 101
440.785.5600 cell

Visual Branding, Environmental Graphic Design, and Digital Creative
View our recent work: www.contempocleveland.com