What is a brand book, and what does it consist of? This question is asked by everyone who has ever wanted to create their own company and promote it. Creating a working brand book combines knowledge and experience from several industries, such as design, marketing, sociology, and psychology. In this article, you will learn what a brand book is, what it includes, and how to create a corporate design correctly.
Definition of a Brand Book
A brand book is a summary of the goals (short and long-term), mission, objectives, and guiding principles of your company.
Above all, the brand's very identity is a DNA blueprint with countless intricacies ranging from the more basic to the more intricate, particularly surrounding the colour scheme and fonts.
A thorough brand handbook is created by combining these components, giving staff and customers a clear understanding of the business and its offering.
Every well-known business, including Facebook, Amazon, and Alibaba, has a brand book, but even smaller-scale brands might benefit from having one.
Start Your Campaign With a Brand Book
Brand identity might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you start your own company. Building a brand book, a document that establishes the style and presentation of your brand, is widely acknowledged to be a time-consuming procedure that is best left for after creating your own brand identity.
The long-term advantages of a strong brand book, though, make the work worthwhile. You need to think about a lot more than just your product or service while developing your brand.
Before interacting with your products and services, your customers use your brand as a tool to assess your identity, image, core values, and other corporate features.
What To Include in a Brand Book?
What should be in a brand book? A successful brand book should, as a general rule, include the following:
Company name.
Outline the brand's attitude, objective, and purpose.
Logos for several brands.
Icons.
Colours.
Variations in fonts, sizes, and styles.
Images that represent the company and serve as examples of the kind of images that can be employed in its marketing plan.
Brand communication and language (for example, formal or informal, appealing to the audience's emotions, or cool and withdrawn).
Logo
What do you imagine when asked what a brand book is? This is undoubtedly a memorable logo. The logo represents your brand, a recognisable symbol that people will see and remember your business and product consciously or unconsciously(s). The section on the logo should specify the colour(s) and size criteria as well as demonstrate and explain how and where it should be used.
A brand book has laid more emphasis on a distinctive and unique logo. It should be optimised and consistent across all media platforms.
Every variation and version of your logo should be described, along with how it will appear on the various platforms, it's positioning, size, and white space requirements.
Colour
Limiting your primary colour palette to four or fewer fundamental colours is customary. When and how to use each colour should be specified in this kind of book:
Which one is utilised for the design components, and which one for the text? Which colour should be used for the backdrop and which for the logo to make it "pop"?
Visuals
Specify rules for using pictures and other visual components. These ought to go over issues like:
What kinds of images, drawings, and symbols work best for your brand?
What proportions ought to be applied?
Which hues should take centre stage?
How should the tagline and logo be combined?
Give specific instances once more to illustrate appropriate and inappropriate usage.
How to Make a Brand Book?
Brand books can be created only when a company defines its distinctive mission and vision.
To achieve this, list the fours elements of your company's structure:
Core values and the vision.
Company Mission.
Brands identity.
Target market.
CORE VALUES AND THE VISION
All business decisions are guided by the brand's vision and fundamental values. They direct the business toward its long-term goals, which include building brand awareness, customer loyalty, and trust.
The following inquiries can help you identify your vision and values:
What size do you want your business to reach?
Do you intend to expand your offerings to include things that aren't currently available?
What kind of legacy do you hope your company will leave?
COMPANIES MISSION
The following questions should be used to develop the brand mission and eliminate any hazy concepts:
What are the goals and motivations of your business?
What distinction is it attempting to make?
Once you have the answers, your firm will be better able to stand out from the competitors, encourage increased consumer participation, and attract employees that share its mission.
To emphasise why it is crucial for everyone to agree with the following style standards, your purpose and vision should be in the first lines of the brand style guide.
BRANDS IDENTITY
Having a solid brand identity or personality is essential for creating communications with the appropriate voice across all media.
Customers are more likely to engage with and identify with your brand when your messaging is consistent and is based on a clear identity.
A brand can be compared to a person with a wish list of characteristics. Once you've determined the set of characteristics to include in a persona, you can use them as a guide for the brand's messaging.
TARGET MARKET
One of the most crucial things to establish is your target audience, and to do so, you must ask yourself the following questions.
Who are the kinds of people you hope will use your products?
Which demographics do you like to see on your website and sign up for your newsletters?
What are your audience's needs, desires, and values, and how do you fit into them?
Knowing your market segment helps you target highly precise demographics and concentrate your audience's attention.
BRAND HISTORY AND STORY
Every brand has a backstory, and every business started as an idea. You can keep this section brief, but the more information you include, the more likely it is that your clients will be able to relate to the brand. It's similar to getting to know someone: everyone you've met initially seemed strange and distant, but once you learned about their personal past and connected with it, you probably couldn't help but feel more connected to them. The same idea holds true for your brand; it, too, is a sort of independent living organism.
IMPORTANCE OF A BRAND BOOK
You'll start to build credibility with your clients or users if a brand book is in place and brand consistency is upheld. Credibility also promotes loyalty.
Let's use school as an illustration: Children follow a routine because it makes them feel safe and in control. Customers are merely kids looking for direction. Consistency hurts brands because it makes customers uncertain and afraid, which undermines their credibility.
The main purpose of a brand book is to serve as a resource for individuals in the creative departments. A brand book will need effort, time, and research to create or update.
This may at first seem cumbersome and expensive, but once finished, it will enhance work efficiency and boost project output. Since the major choices have already been decided, creatives will have less time to debate their course of action.
For instance, since these have already been decided upon, a graphic designer won't have to experiment with various typefaces, or the social media manager won't have to decide which writing style to employ. Overall, work performance and communication efficiency for the brand will improve.
What is a Brand Book of a Well-Known Company? Success Stories
Walmart Brand Book
Once, Sam Walton said: "There is only one captain in a ship, and it's the customer. And he has the authority to terminate everyone in the business, even the chairman.
By diverting his funds elsewhere, our story begins with the consumer, just like every successful business tale. The most crucial factor is what they want. And while each person is unique, they all value how we enable them to lessen the stress brought on by high costs on a tight budget.
They are price-conscious consumers. For them, paying less for some things translates into more time to enjoy the key moments in life.
The brand usage policies of online retailer Walmart emphasise the value of appropriate brand usage as one of the company's most important brand assets.
As long as they adhere to the guidelines outlined in the document, the company permits advertisers to use Walmart logo elements. Additionally, advertising must request Walmart's permission before using any content.
Cerave Brand Book
This personal care and cosmetics company features a succinct brand-style book that begins with an introduction and a narrative about the company's history, principles, and mission.
The company sets the tone in these initial words by asserting its crucial role in skincare innovation and highlighting its brand ambassadors and accessibility worldwide as some of its strongest qualities.
The brand book continues by defining these components as necessary for its personnel and marketing initiatives: brand name, ads, logos and colour patterns.
What is a Brand Book Design?
The lifeblood of your brand identity is a brand book. It provides clear guidance to the public regarding the values and aesthetics of your brand.
More than ever, comprehensive design guidelines are essential. People can recognise your brand with the help of a cohesive structure.
Your business must actively develop a consistent brand image across all of its online platforms and physical representations because marketing tools and communication channels have become so varied in the digital era.
Developing a brand book is the complex work of several teams of specialists. Davydov Consulting web design agency specializes in creating high-quality brands that make a difference. Contact us, and we will create a new identity for your brand.
Brand Book FAQ
What is a brand book?
A brand book is an official document that sets the company's visual style standards. It describes the main values and features in the promotion and development of the brand.
What to include in a brand book?
A standard brand book can include three main sections: Brand (mission, value and target audience), Corporate identity (logo, trademark, slogan, colours, fonts, photos, graphic objects), Interaction rules (language, grammar and formatting, style, manner communication, blog, social platforms).
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