Does your Brand need Brand Guidelines (Brand Book)

by Mayur Bhat | Mar 21, 2017 | Branding, Design

You’ve thought of an amazing brand name, come up with a spectacular logo, you’ve paid top dollar and built a gorgeous website. Every piece of material that goes out of your company is meticulously detailed. But people still don’t seem to remember your company name, or what your company sells, or even what your logo looks like. Have you ever wondered why that is?

The answer is simple. Your branding lacks consistency and direction.

Your Brand is more than just a name or a logo or a website. It is an experience.

And you can (to a certain degree) craft this experience for your target audience. How?

By Means of a Brand Guidelines (Brand Book)

What are Brand Guidelines?

A Brand Guideline (also referred to as a ‘brand book‘ or ‘brand style guide‘) is a set of rules that details how your brand works and how your brand should be represented. These guidelines include the Identity elements and Visual elements of your brand.

The Brand Identity Elements are:

Your Brand Story
Your Brand Philosophy (Mission, Vision, and Values)
Your Brand Personality / Brand Voice
Boilerplate etc.

The Brand Visual Elements include:

Logo and tagline
Proper and Improper usage of Logo and Tagline (With visual examples)
Your colour palette
Your typography
Stationary / Merchandise design
Brand Do’s and Don’t’s etc.

Does your Brand need Brand Guidelines?

The Short Answer is YES. Here’s why:

Ensures Continuity

Your brand is bound to be represented by more than one person/agency. Your Brand guidelines ensure that whoever is representing your brand, follows a set of rules and regulations so that the target audience is familiar with the voice and image of the brand.

Ensures Correct Usage

Stretched Logos, mixed up colours, terrible backgrounds, blurry images, these are a brand custodians worst nightmare. And this is precisely what will be avoided with a clear, specific and concise listing of how to use a brands marks.

Avoids Confusion

Multiple people represent a brand, using brand guidelines ensures that anyone who represents your brand is familiar with the messaging, look and feel of the brand. This way, the target audience will always receive an undeviating constant communique.

Sets Standards

A brand guideline clearly specifies the colour palette, font types/font combinations, background colour, logo usage etc. So all your collaterals will be consistent, the brand recall will be optimum.

Increases Brand Recall

Consistency will aid people in remembering your company name, the logo, what your company sells etc. It firmly plants the brand in the audience’s mind, and how it is perceived will be in your hands.

Making your brand identity clear will go a long way in how people perceive your brand and how it’s short term and long term brand image shapes up.

Brand Guidelines is the difference between your brand being a bus headed nowhere and a bus headed to a destination.

What Makes an Interesting Business Card

by Dhanya J | Jan 5, 2017 | Design, Marketing

A business card is the first marketing collateral that you hand out in the business world and invariably creates the first impression about your business and yourself!

As an entrepreneur, how much time does one spend on getting a business card designed & printed? Would you think it through and design with care or do you delegate it to the junior most person on your team?

It gets handed out so frequently that it is easy for yours to get lost in the sheer number. Let us look at aspects that will make it an important marketing tool for your business.

The good old 3×2 business card

There are advantages to the traditional rectangular cards that we are so used to, they are easy to carry, store and locate.

Using bold colours or simple contrasts will help your ‘traditional’ card get noticed and make it stick out in someone’s memory. It is important to place your logo boldly and prominently position your contact details and website address on the front with a list of services on the back.

Have a signature style

There are myriad options you can choose from to make your business card interesting. You can let your imagination run wild with some of the suggestions listed below:

Do you own a café?

Shape your card to look like a coaster or add a customer review at the back of the card

Do you sell spices?

Print your best recipe on the back

Do you like to make a bold statement?

Print your card in Black

Are you a creative person?

Use recycled paper or handmade paper

While making the card interesting, it helps to keep in mind how practical it is. You can’t carry a stack of “business cards” the size of a Billboard around to hand out, odd shaped or large designs are conversation starters for sure but they are difficult to store.

Simple design

Some people may argue that a card with nothing more than a logo or even just a motto or a color scheme is bold and makes a statement. These cards have a mysterious appeal to them. They certainly pique the interest of whoever receives it.

It is good to dazzle at the same time we need to remember that the business card is used to generate business but will forget which company it’s from or who gave it to them after a while.

Whatever you do, make sure to

Whichever route you decide to take though the rule of thumb is to keep the information in one place. Do not overcrowd the card with a barrage of text or images. This can make finding a phone number or the email id a tedious job.

Someone may want to write a note on the card and having no space to do so is problematic. Take care to ensure you use quality printing paper, skimping out on the quality is a mistake many people make.

A well designed business card can keep you connected. While it is important to stand out, it should not happen at the cost of practical use the card is meant for, which is to get you business.