Key takeaways
- Short and actionable beats comprehensive and ignored.
- Show examples. Do's and don'ts. Real applications.
- Make it findable. Keep it updated.
Brand guidelines are useless if no one follows them. The best ones are practical: clear, actionable, and easy to find. Here's how to make them stick.
Keep it short
A 50-page PDF will sit in a drawer. A 5–10 page guide with the essentials gets used. Logo usage, colours, fonts, tone. That's it for starters.
Show, don't just tell
Examples of good and bad. Do's and don'ts. Real applications. People learn from visuals.
Make it findable
Notion, Confluence, or a simple webpage. If people have to dig for it, they won't. Link to it from your intranet, onboarding, and templates.
Update it
Outdated guidelines get ignored. When you add a new channel or asset type, update the guide. Keep it current.
FAQs
Enough for someone to create on-brand work without asking. Not so much that it's overwhelming.
Templates are the best enforcement. If the template is on-brand, output tends to be.