why your business needs brand guidelines

Brand guidelines are a set of rules about how to represent your brand across channels and assets, helping your business build credibility and recognition as you grow.

Brand guidelines always include visual guidelines (logo usage, color palette, typography); they can also cover your company’s mission, brand voice, imagery, and more.

logo guidelines

Brand guidelines aren’t the same for every company, nor should they be. While prominent brands require more detailed rules and scenarios, startups and small businesses can get by with a pared-down set of guidelines and add to them over time.

Your logo is the face of your brand. If it appears differently across channels and assets, it will lose its recognition and dilute your brand.

Logo elements – A visual guide to the elements that make up your logo, including wordmark, icon, and slogan (where applicable).

Color variations – The primary (colored) version of your logo, as well as black-and-white versions, transparent background options, and any other color variations that are allowed.

Clear space (also called exclusion zone, safety space, padding, etc.) – Your logo should always be surrounded by a consistent amount of clear space to ensure its visibility and impact. At Logojoy, we determine clear space by taking 10% of the total width of your logo. No graphic elements or text should invade this zone!

Color palettes – Based on your logo, two color palettes are usually determined:

A primary color palette, which consists of the exact colors used in your logo, including color names and codes for different uses (CMYK for print, HEX and RGB codes for digital).
A secondary color palette, which consists of complementary brand colors that can be used for text, headlines, and other components of branded assets.

Typography – This section of your brand guidelines document will show the main fonts or typefaces used in your logo, as well as secondary fonts that can be applied to headlines, body copy, and more.