Why Brand Need Guidelines
Hiring a new creative freelancer or dealing with a new creative studio for your brand is a very common situation that you must have experienced more than once. Among the first things that are asked or discussed is usually about the guidelines of it, your brand guidelines. Even if it is the designers’ expertise to advance your brand, all of the aspects and fundamentals of your brand are, of course, your own ideas and ideals.
But when they asked for references, the brand owners sometimes had no idea where to start looking and what to look for. This can be an obstacle that halts the creative process because the designer needs to understand more about your brand before advancing into more complicated tasks, but you also have no time to start worrying about references.
This is how a brand manual can give you a heads-up in the timeline. All you have to do is invest your time in advance to make a good graphic standard manual. Summarize all of your brand’s essence neatly without rushing for project deadlines and have it ready for all of your brand’s projects in the long run.
All the fundamentals of the brand that are needed by the designers are premade and ready to be used inside the graphic standard manual. Well, a good graphic standard manual usually includes your brand vision and mission, logo, logo use, primary and complementary colors, color use, typefaces, examples of official marketing collaterals, stationery, and online and offline applications. You can also add any other specific things if it is important for your brand’s special needs.
A brand manual can also keep your brand on track. Maybe some people worry that summarizing their brand’s graphic examples will limit the designer’s creativity. But it actually works the other way around. If the brand’s creative concept is well documented, designers can decide whether the brand needs a redesign or not, and can still keep track of the brand’s core value. This is very important because consistency is valuable for brands.
So, are you ready to explore your brand’s potential?
