Book: Pocket Guide - Working with brand & design guidelines
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Working with brand & design guidelines

By Rachel Shillcock

This Pocket Guide, by Rachel Shillcock, will walk you through how to utilise the brand elements, including typography, visual elements, text and tone of voice, while also giving you ideas on how to create a set of effective guidelines for your own business.

About this book

Every business should have a set of brand & design guidelines that explain how to keep their brand’s image, visual style, personality and tone consistent across the many forms that the brand will take in its lifetime.

But what happens when you have guidelines to use, but you have no idea how to put them into practice? This Pocket Guide, by Rachel Shillcock, will walk you through how to utilise the brand elements you have at hand, including typography, visual elements (colour, imagery, icons and more) and text and tone of voice, while also giving you ideas on how to create a set of effective guidelines for your own business.

Topics include

A particular challenge for any designer is adapting a personal style to the needs and visual requirements of different brands. Brand design guidelines are just one way that we can keep ourselves in check when designing for others.

Take a look at the biggest and best brands in the world – think Virgin, Apple, Coca-Cola. Each of these companies have brand voices that are consistent in the message they send out. But what is the strongest visual part of their brands – the glue that helps hold everything together more than any other visual element in their brand strategy? Their typography.

Colour and visual cues in a brand are so integral because that’s what the majority of an audience will connect to most readily. Colour and imagery are everywhere – it’s something that we come into contact with from the second that we open our eyes. At any one time, our brains are trying to process thousands of pieces of information at once – but only a few make it through so that we actually start to comprehend and think about them.

The content you use in a design is vital to how particular designs or campaigns will be perceived. However, even more important is often how the words are said. From the copy used on a website, to the words that you use in email newsletters, social media messages via Twitter or Facebook, and even product packaging or physical brochures... none of that matters unless you manage to strike the right balance with your tone of voice. Keep your tone of voice consistent and an audience will connect with a brand in a much more positive way and the results will be longer-lasting, too.

We’ve covered some of the major parts of brand design guidelines in the previous chapters, but now we’re onto the really fun part: how to create brand guidelines of your own that are useful, effective, and shed light on a brand’s message and purpose.

About Rachel Shillcock

Rachel Shillcock

Rachel Shillcock transforms brands & websites for soulful & visionary women entrepreneurs through a blend of mastering mindset, crafting your message + creating beautiful designs.

A big believer that incredible design has the power to change the world, Rachel has spoken at events all around the UK and has written for global online publications, including Envato and net magazine.

To a certain degree, you’re not going to be able to control the exact content used in your designs.

Rachel Shillock