HOW TO CREATE A BRAND BOOK
A brand book is a visual and written document that establishes guidelines for a company's tone, personality, and identity. It serves as the foundation for a company's consistent messaging, both visual and verbal, and is considered the brand's bible. A brand book typically includes three clear parts: About, Communication Guidelines, and Visual Identity. It is used as an internal guideline to ensure that employees have a unified understanding of the brand's identity. Externally, it serves as a guideline for showcasing the brand to consumers and investors. Overall, it is a key document for any business..
ABOUT
Brand Mission: An effective mission statement should be a clear and concise declaration of your business strategy. It should describe your company's purpose and the difference it aims to make. Typically, this is no longer than one sentence or a short paragraph.
Brand Vision & Core Values: A brand's vision and core values are crucial in guiding the brand and all business decisions. They direct the company towards its long-term objectives, such as gaining brand awareness, trust, and customer loyalty. They must also describe the legacy that the business aims to leave behind and attract talent that is passionate about building this legacy.
Brand Story: A brand story evokes an emotional reaction and creates a connection between the brand, its stakeholders, and customers. It recounts the events or thoughts that sparked the company’s inception and highlights milestones in the brand’s life.
Brand Positioning: Positioning refers to how your company stands out from its competitors. Hone in on the gap that it will fill in the market. Explain what will make consumers choose your company and why.y.
Audience Segments: This refers to the target group that you want to use your products. You need to understand the demographics, psychographics, needs, wants, and values of the people in this group, and how your product or service factors into them. It can be helpful to create a few audience personas with defined names and habits to demonstrate how your product or service meets their needs.
Brand Persona: A brand can be thought of as a person with a character and specific traits. Defining those traits creates a guide for your brand's consistent messaging. A strong brand persona makes it easier for customers to connect with and identify with your brand.
COMMUNICATIONS GUIDELINES
Tone of Voice: Your tone of voice needs to be consistent across all communication channels, including email, social media, press releases, blog posts, and ads. It should align with your brand's persona, mission, vision, values, and target audience. To help define your brand's tone, consider creating a list of adjectives that describe what your brand is and what it is not. The tone you choose will depend on the level of professionalism or sass you want to convey to your audience.
Audience Filters: If you have created numerous brand personas, you will need to identify whether your tone of voice or communication strategy will be the same for all, or if it will vary based on each persona..
Taglines & Key Messages: To create effective taglines and key messages, start by identifying words that you want to be associated with and words that you don't. Then, choose language that aligns with both your persona and your target audience.
VISUAL IDENTITY
Depending on how design-oriented your company is, you can start with the key sections below and add company-specific visual guidelines. Defining and outlining these guidelines will help create brand consistency across platforms, strengthening your brand identity and rapport with your audience.
- Logo — Includes placement, clear space, variations for different platforms and channels, colors, size, and proportions.
- Colors — Describes the rules and usage of primary and secondary colors, as well as their monochrome versions. Also includes texture, gradients and specific color codes (Hex, RGB) that will be used.
- Brandmark — Provides guidelines for placement.
- Typography — Outlines the fonts, type hierarchy, and provides examples.
- Grammar and formatting — Addresses abbreviations, numbers, capitalization, acronyms, times, and titles.
- Editorial style guide — Defines the style and guidelines for consistent presentation, usage, and guidelines for photography, formatting, and structure of blog posts.
- Social Media — Includes posting guidelines, visual identity, and strategy. Examples of posts and layouts can be included, as well as profile and banner photos.
- Social Media — posting guidelines, visual identity, and strategy. You can include post and layout examples and Profile and Banner photos here.
BRAND BOOK EXAMPLES